Lawful Larceny

this is a pretty good movie with pretty good acting considering it's a b movie for the most part i new i was going to like it because one of the actors in this always does a fine job of acting and making you believe he is the character he's playing made in 1930 it's one of the early talkies and one of the better jobs of casting for a film just really learning to cast for a movie where there will be talking i can never tell what city the early movies take place in but i think that this one is set in new york though most of this movie takes place inside different homes there's not much outside action so you can get a guage on what city this is but it's still one that i would highly recommend.

Bebe Daniels returns from a trip to discover that husband Kenneth Thomson has passed her absence in the company of Olive Tell. Miss Tell runs a home where bored wives may gamble, and bored husbands may gamble and gambol with Miss Tell. Bebe leaves her husband, and goes to work for Miss Tell. Miss Tell explains that it is her job to enchant every man except for her fiance, Lowell Sherman. The first thing Bebe does is to remove her husband's marker from the packet for Miss Tell's bank, marked for collection. The second it to work on Mr. Sherman who, it turns out, has an interesting line of work.

It's based on a stage show, where, it was hoped, important things are said wittily. Unfortunately the director, who is also Mr. Sherman, directs his actors in a very stagey fashion on a two-set stage. Director J. Roy Hunt tries to open up the effects with some camera movement, but the effect is not truly effective. The only actor who comes off particularly well is Mr. Sherman, who gets to comment on the action in a tipsy manner..

... like something that might have come out of the silent era. And in fact,it did. It was a silent film and this version drags that one into the sound era with exactly the same plot from the original play.

Marion Dorsey (Bebe Daniels) has been away awhile on an extended trip. When she returns home her husband Andrew (Kenneth Thomson) confesses everything to her. He met a woman at a party, they became close, and the woman used that closeness to cause him to lose at cards and run up a big debt to her. He sold everything they had and yet he still owed more - 25 thousand dollars. He sees her for what she is now, but she has cleaned him out of his cash.

Marion comes up with a novel plan - She gets a job as the other woman's - Vivian's - secretary. Vivian also is trying to teach Marion in the ways of going for a gold in a man, right down to his gold fillings. But Marion came here with a purpose - that being to destroy Vivian's life the way hers was destroyed when she took Andrew's heart, his money, and his reputation. An odd bird is "the Judge" played by Purnell Pratt. He knows what Vivian is doing and how she is making her living, but he seems OK with it. The judge is just being way too Beta towards Vivian for his own good.

The camera can't move an inch at this point and so the actors have to all stand around together, leave the frame, and then the camera switches to where they have regrouped. Thus it is difficult to follow people from room to room. Still it is all so cleverly done, not the least of which is because not only is the sardonic Lowell Sherman playing the current lover of Vivian, he is the director as well. Sherman was successfully transitioning to director when he passed away at only age 46 in 1934.