Political activist Como Murphy (Preston Foster), on the run from a murder rap, ducks into Mother Bright's (Alison Skipworth) waterfront saloon on the infamous Barbary Coast and forms a fast friendship with Turk (Victor McLaglen), a stoker on a ship bound for Shanghai. When the cops close in, Como's directed upstairs where he stumbles into Toy's room (a sexy Dorothy Dell) and he spends the night there. The next day, he leaves a note for Toy promising to return and signs on with Turk's ship but on shore leave in the Orient, Como learns the gal Turk carries a torch for is none other than Toy. Como doesn't tell Turk he knows Toy and when their ship docks in Frisco, both men make a bee line for Ma Bright's where their romantic triangle comes to a deadly head...
Paramount's burly brawler Victor McLaglen had been playing variations on the "love & friendship" shtick ever since WHAT PRICE GLORY? back in '26 and handsome Preston Foster makes a good romantic opponent for him here. Paramount's back lot Frisco, all fog and shadow, was put over with a bit of panache by director William Cameron Menzies, who'd go on to greater fame as one of Hollywood's premiere set designers. Released just before the Production Code crackdown, it's obvious how Dorothy Dell earns her living at Mother Bright's and there's lots of snappy patter, too, such as "No tow-headed jane is gonna make a monkey out of me!" and Dell actually tells McLaglen to "flock off" at one point. The alluring Dottie also warbles a wistful blues ballad and a lean and lanky Mischa Auer makes the most of his role as shifty shipmate Sadik, replete with an earring and a turncoat temper.
Things were going great guns for nineteen year-old Dorothy Dell at the time; the former "Miss New Orleans" and "Miss Universe of 1930" was plucked from the Ziegfield Follies by Paramount and groomed as its answer to Fox's Alice Faye. Dorothy had just made her mark in the Shirley Temple starrer, Little Miss Marker, and it looked like she had arrived when it all came to a sudden, tragic end on June 8, 1934. Returning from a party in the Altadena hills, Dottie and her date were killed in a car crash; their automobile went over an embankment, hit a telephone pole, and rammed into a boulder. Dorothy was killed instantly and her escort died a few hours later. Engaged to another at the time of her death, Dell was also romantically involved with crooner Russ Columbo who, along with Rudy Vallee and Bing Crosby, was making multitudes of female fans swoon as his velvety voice wafted over the airwaves.
