My Sin

Tallulah Bankhead and Fredric March get second chances in the drama My Sin. He's an alcoholic lawyer and she's a loose nightclub singer. When she gets arrested for murder, no one will defend her except Freddie, since his career can sink no lower. Then, when she's acquitted, they both vow to make fresh starts-she moves away and even takes a new name!

Tallulah Bankhead is a lovely, sultry actress, who preferred the stage to the screen. If you're lucky enough to find one of the few movies she made, you're in for a real treat. If you like Barbara Stanwyck, you'll like Tallu; they're both tough yet very emotional. She carries the spirit of this movie on her shoulders, and she effortlessly shifts from tough to confident to classy to romantic. She and Freddie make a darling pair, even when they're just leaning on each other in friendship, and this movie will probably make you wish they made more movies together! I liked this cute drama, and it's pretty short so you can pair it with another old flick for a double feature!

Poor Tallulah Bankhead (Carlotta). In this film she ended up in Panama working as a prostitute - smoking, drinking, singing and generally having a great time. However, her pimp husband Joseph Calleia ruins it all by demanding her money and one day he is no more. Bang! Bankhead goes on trial for his murder but gets off thanks to drunken lawyer Fredric March (Dick). Both these character's lives are turned around after this incident. It is obvious that they belong together yet they go their separate ways and become successful in their own right - she as an interior decorator and he as a lawyer. Rich, snooty Scott Kalk (Larry) becomes Tallulah's love interest but will her past come back to haunt her? When wealthy oil tycoon Harry Davenport (Roger) shows up as one of Kalk's relatives, it looks like things aren't going to work out. Tallulah reminds him of a girl involved in a murder trial in Panama some years ago...

Well, it's a pretty stupid storyline in which we are given painfully contrived scenarios. We know what the outcome will be and we just wait for the romance to pan out and the right two characters to pair off with each other. There is nothing very interesting about the film once it moves away from the Panama setting. Tallulah is good in the lead - a sort of Bette Davis character before Davis was around. She entered film so that she could sleep with Gary Cooper, so her character at the beginning of the film is what she was actually like. She got her way with Cooper, by the way.

Fans of director George Abbott and of Tallulah Bankhead should want to see My Sin which was shot at Paramount's Astoria Studios in New York and which George Abbott must have directed in his spare time when matinees of his Broadway work were not played. This is one of Paramount's efforts to make Tallulah Bankhead a film star. But they never quite succeeded.

Fredric March was Bankhead's male lead and both play down and outers living in the Panama Canal Zone. March a drunken and dissolute former attorney and Bankhead a dissolute cabaret singer kills a man who was robbing and beating on her. March gets her off and it's the first step toward rehabilitation for both of them.

This pre-code melodrama is way too old fashioned to be remade today. It creaked even in 1931. One thing I will say that the film does note, that woman have it rougher on the comeback trail than men. True today as well.

It helps to love Tallulah.

Frederic March is another American professional wrecked on the rocks of booze and a foreign shore. He's a lawyer in Panama who has just hocked his fancy lawyer's desk so he can gamble and drink with 'hostess' Tallulah Bankhead, only she's not having any. Her husband appears, demands the money she has been saving and slaps her around. A gun goes off and she's on trial for her life, with a sobered-up March getting her off. Oil Company owner Harry Davenport likes March's moxie and hires him, and he does very well.

Miss Bankhead also moves away. She heads to New York and when the audience next sees her, she's an interior decorator. She gets engaged to rich stockbroker Scott Kolk. When they go to visit his mother to break the news, his uncle is there. Guess Who!

It's another of those movies which imply there are only about twenty or thirty people in the world, and I find the coincidences bizarre. Miss Bankhead, Mr. March and Mr Davenport are very good, which I found a bit surprising, because this was directed by George Abbot, taking a couple of years off from Broadway to see how the movies were. He didn't stray too far, since this was shot at what is now the Kaufman-Astoria Studio in Queens. After a dozen movies in total, it was back to Broadway, returning to the flickers direct three more movies -- filmed versions of his Broadway hits.

Abbott had first appeared on Broadway in a revival of Gilbert & Sullivan's YEOMAN OF THE GUARD in 1915. He last worked on the stage on a revival of DAMN YANKEES in 1994 and died the following year at the age of 107. Now that's a long run!

The story begins in Panama. Carlotta (Tallulah Bankhead) ends up shooting a man who broke into her room and attacked her. While this was entirely justified, Carlotta is a woman with a past...a 'fallen woman'. Because of this, most lawyers won't defend her. Eventually, an alcoholic lawyer, Dick (Frederic March), agrees to defend her and manages to get an acquittal. Following the trial, both Dick and Carlotta realize it's an opportunity for both of them to begin new and productive lives...to reinvent themselves in a better way. Dick gives her some money to book passage to the States while he seriously begins working as a sober attorney.

Some time passes. Carlotta has renamed herself 'Ann' and she's a very successful interior decorator. She also has a rich man who has fallen for her and his mother seems happy with the engagement. But what about her past? And, what if the fiance discovers who she used to be?

I liked this film. While it has a very simple plot, it makes a nice point about redemption and features several really nice performances. A very nice film.