Unbescholten

On loan from her home studio of Paramount Pictures, Carole Lombard made this film with rising new star Pat O'Brien who next year would be signing with Warner Brothers. It's the story of a streetwalker who falls for a lovable lunkhead of a taxi driver, but whose past keeps catching up with her.

Virtue could not have been made in two years once the Code was firmly in place. Prostitutes were barely seen on the big screen after that and definitely no stories were built around them as central characters.

Lombard and a group of her friends are given suspended sentences providing they leave the New York City limits. But the course of true love gets in the way when she meets O'Brien and almost gyps him out of a fare.

O'Brien somewhat dumbs it down in this part. He's not the usual fast talking promoter in fact his grammar and diction are about two steps above Leo Gorcey. It was more the kind of role his boyhood chum Spencer Tracy was doing over at Fox Films at the time. Still he's a good guy and comes through when it counts.

Humphrey Bogart's third wife Mayo Methot plays Lombard's best friend and Jack LaRue her no good boyfriend. Ward Bond is also on hand as O'Brien's best friend in one of his early films. Bond if possible is an even bigger lovable lunkhead than O'Brien.

With a nice crisp script by Robert Riskin who wrote some of the best of Frank Capra's films, Virtue is a real undiscovered treat for fans of both Lombard and O'Brien. Catch it by all means when it is next broadcast.

I liked this little movie quite a lot. It has a substance and quality that some of Lombard's other early movies lack. It is obvious that some care was taken with this screenplay. I would say that the key word for this film is "misunderstanding". It explores the question of whether someone can escape their past and whether love conquers all. This is the first of five pictures that Lombard would make for Columbia Pictures.

The chemistry is good between Pat O'Brien who plays "Jimmy" the cabdriver and Carole Lombard who plays "Mae" the street-girl. Mae's sentence has been suspended by the Judge on the condition that she leave New York City. Of course she refuses. On her way home she takes a cab, but has no money to pay. She stiffs the cabdriver. Later she goes back to square things and a relationship develops between the two. We watch these two grow closer and more dependent on each other, we root for Jimmy as he struggles to fulfill his dream to become a business man, and we cry as a financial crisis and murder come between them.

Ever put a film on you've never heard about but have been really surprised how good it was? This is one of those movies.

Some people might watch this because they're Carole Lombard fans. Although this might sound sacrilegious to them, I'm not a fan of her comedy but in this she's fantastic. This is a Columbia picture, it's shabby and grimy and Carole Lombard perfectly fits into this unsavoury world as a slightly shop soiled street walker. Unlike in some other films of the period, the star is not a victim, she's not struggling. She's thriving and is part of that environment, she's as much a part of that dirty city as the Brooklyn Bridge.

It's written by Robert Riskin, who would go on to write most of Frank Capra's classic films so you know that however uncertain things get for our heroes, you're probably going to get a happy ending....or do you?

Although the plot is essentially about a prostitute who falls in love with a taxi driver, Riskin's brilliant script weaves it into a lovely story arc where we see characters evolve before our eyes. It's underlying theme however is perception. In the eyes of the others, however much she changes, Mae was and always will be just an untrustworthy prostitute. Maybe on a deeper level it's about how we see ourselves and how we see each other. It's how we see others as reflections of our own preconceptions and indeed of ourselves. Although not quite Frank Capra, director Edward Buzzell does a great job and reinforces the reflection motifs with some clever use of mirrors and reflections.

Overall, definitely worth watching for a great, uplifting story with some of the best fast-talking, wisecracking dialogue ever giving us a real taste of life for the underdogs of New York during the darkest days of the depression.

The above quote is one of Mae West's more famous off-screen quips and although it wasn't made about the 1932 picture VIRTUE but it could have been given this is a sharp little pre-code drama from Columbia that may have failed with ticket takers but still holds one's interest a good 70 years after production was completed.

The very young Carole Lombard stars as Mae (!!) a rather chic and smart street walker (especially compared to her contemporaries in the film) who unexpectedly finds true love with loud-mouthed cab driver Pat O'Brien who is oblivious to her past. Shortly after their wedding he finds out the truth and struggles to keep his faith in her. The script to this little programmer is by Robert Riskin and features excellent and credible dialogue, not "snappy patter" a hackneyed writer might have gone with. Lombard is superb in this and even the often predictable O'Brien does really good work here. TCM aired this long-unseen little gem with zero fanfare for the first time in December 2007, let's hope they'll also go in the vaults to get Lombard's other rare Columbia films NO MORE ORCHIDS and BRIEF MOMENT.

This one has a prostitute trying to go straight, a tough-talking cab driver whose harsh words hide a heart of gold, and there is even a murder tucked away in the plot.

The story opens on prostitute Mae(Carole Lombard) being escorted to a train that will take her out of New York City - a condition of her not serving jail time for street walking is that she leave town. As soon as the police are gone she gets right off the train. Having no money, she has to ditch Jimmy Doyle (Pat O'Brien), the cabby that takes her back into the city, without paying him. However, Mae is a woman without options, not a woman who is basically dishonest, so as soon as she has the money she pays Jimmy the fare, although at the worst possible time - watch the film to see what I'm talking about.

Jimmy and Mae hit it off and even get married, but they're basically two people looking for love that have two big problems. Mae can't take back her past, and Jimmy can't - with dignity - take back the words he has said about him being all-knowing when it comes to "dames", especially after he learns of his wife's past occupation at a most inopportune time. From that point forward the two have a good relationship on the surface, but underneath Jimmy always has his doubts as to whether Mae's past is really behind her, and Mae feels like she's on probation. Then something comes up that brings all of these feelings to the surface.

Mayo Methot plays Lil Blair, an aging woman of the streets and friend to Mae whose boyfriend Toots is more than happy to have Lil support him and more than unhappy when she can't come up with quite enough money to keep him in race track forms. Lil winds up playing a bigger part in the whole story than her small amount of screen time would make you believe.

This fast moving little precode with heart is everything that the best precodes of the early 30's should be. Many of the precodes that came out of Columbia in the early 30's had a paint-by-numbers feel about them, like they were just going through the motions. This one has very good performances by the entire cast and a storyline that draws you into the everyday lives of these not so everyday people.