...which is Jeff Bidwell (Robert Montgomery). He is an agent and PR man extraordinaire, but absolutely nothing about this story has anything to do with Broadway or what is made there. Bidwell is so well known in New York that big shots just hang out in his apartment living room - where free drinks are served - waiting for him to come home and give them advice, which he does for a hefty fee. As he points out, when you look at his fees, he is really not the one paying for all of these drinks. Apparently his apartment doubles as his office. He has a strictly business middle aged secretary, and he also has a valet who for some reason is being played by Eugene Palette. Palette is really wasted here as he really has no opportunity to do much of anything.
One night on the ferry a girl who claims she is at the end of her rope, Mona Martine (Sally Eilers), jumps off of the same ferry that Bidwell is riding. He jumps into the water to save her. She claims to be just another girl down on her Great Depression luck wanting to end it all, but I wonder. The story Bidwell gives her to tell once the press shows up to ask what happened is not the story she tells. She has an alternative tale all made up, one that seems to make her look better than Bidwell's story did. Plus she was looking Jeff's direction when she jumped into the water. Did she plan this whole thing just to meet Bidwell? At that point, Bidwell's ex-wife, who is running a salon, gives Mona a make-over at Bidwell's request. Bidwell tells the ex-wife, that just as a strictly business kind of thing, he'd like to give the girl some elocution and dance lessons and see if she can get into the follies. He says it is a project of his. But through a series of bills shown the viewer, you can see this quickly becomes personal and then romantic and then maybe a bit obsessive. Bidwell takes Mona out, and man after man stops by and wants to dance or take her out afterwards. Jeff looks so disgusted. He wants to possess her just because he doesn't possess her i.e. marry her. He even tells his ex-wife that he KNOWS this is why he wants to marry her, yet she still draws him in.
Well, later that night Mona gives Jeff a frantic call. She has shot a man dead in her apartment, supposedly in self defense due to an attempted rape. Bidwell knows this is not true and later gets the truth out of her, but she convinces him that she loves only him, and so he gets to work trying to make the attempted rape story stick to get her out of a murder rap.
How will all of this work out? Watch and find out. Sally Eilers is great as the blonde Mona - she's a real piece of work and Bidwell has finally found his match in her, a match in profiteering and insincerity that is. The role of Bidwell the fixer is a real fast talking street wise part in contrast to the suave upper crust roles Montgomery usually played during this part of his MGM career, and he plays it well. Madge Evens has an understated role as Bidwell's classy ex-wife, Claire. They are still in love, and Claire seems to be waiting around for Bidwell to take a breath from all of the affairs that have come since, and maybe even before the divorce to figure this out. The question is, will he? I'd strongly recommend this as great Depression fun - Montgomery and Eilers make it so, even though I don't think they ever did another film together.
