Alimony Madness

Nifty little low budget film about divorce and more specifically alimony. Leon Ames plays a sap married to a conniving woman (Charlotte Merriam) who wants a divorce after admitting to him that she only married him for his money (he's an architect) and the alimony she' can get out of him.

He's so distraught he agrees to all her greedy requests including $40,000 in bonds and $1,000 in monthly alimony. To get the divorce, the sap also agrees to "get caught" with a woman in his office and naming her correspondent. Enter Helen Chandler as Joan. She's out of work and takes the seedy assignment for a quick $100.

Later, she comes to work for Ames but his business has collapsed because of the bad publicity from the divorce. The ex-wife is gadding about Europe when Ames is brought to court for non-payment of his alimony checks. He's tossed into an "alimony jail" with others who can't pay.

Chandler gets him out and marries him and they have a kid. But it's a constant struggle because the shrew ex-wife never lets up about her late alimony checks, and she has no plans to remarry and lose her meal ticket.

Things get worse and worse and then the kid gets sick. While running out to get a prescription, Ames is hauled back into court for nonpayment. By the time he gets back to his house with the medicine, Chandler has made a plan.

She confronts the ex-wife and the worst happens. But it's the only way to get out from under alimony payments in a legal system that allows an ex-wife to bleed her ex-husband for years, depriving him of any real life.

Chandler is terrific as the frantic young wife. Ames and Merriam are also solid. Alberta Vaughn is the friend, Blanche Friderici is the haughty client. Edward Earle is the sleazy lawyer, and Arthur Loft the nice one.

An interesting topic for a 1933 film, and it pulls out all the stops in the pre-Code drama.

Charlotte Merriam tells her husband, rising architect Leon Ames, she wants a divorce. He offers $40,000 in securities. Her lawyer says she must have alimony also. Ames agrees to $1,000 a month. She won't go to Mexico or Reno, so he agrees to a co-respondent. It turns out to be Helen Chandler. She has been fired as a stenographer and her folks out west need the $100 she'll get. Ames sees what an innocent she is, and tries to shield her, but she is identified.

Ames' practice promptly tanks from the public scandal. He doesn't have the money to pay the alimony and is thrown into jail, whence Miss Chandler rescues him, goes to work for him, and marries him. But the bad times continue while Miss Merriam lives high on the hog.

The first half of this movie is excellent, with Miss Chandler nailing the role, and Ames is excellent, as always. It's the second half and its conversion into a weepy indictment of the depredations of useless women bleeding their ex-husbands dry, that looks ridiculous in its sob story. Director B. Reeves Eason -- credited as "Breezy Eason" -- gets the movie through the second marriage, then largely gives up and finishes it off mechanically. With Blanche Friderici, Alberta Vaughn, and John Ince.