The Curtain Falls

Retired actress Henrietta Crosman has come to the end of the road. She is old, broke, and the boarding house she lives in has just been condemned. She writes her old friend, Lady Scoursby, for help, but Scoursby has disappeared. So Crosman impersonates her, moving into the home of the Lady's nephew, Holmes Herbert -- he has not seen her since he was a boy and he is a rich man....or so Miss Crosman thinks. The bank will not extend his loans, his wife is cheating on him, his son, William Bakewell, is indebted to a crooked gambler who has his forged checks, and his daughter, Dorothy Lee, wants to marry a young man of no social standing. So Miss Crosman uses her borrowed name and acting skills to set things right.

It's good to see Miss Lee try straight acting, away from Wheeler and Woolsey, even if she is not exceptional. That's because Miss Crosman pulls out all stops and is very entertaining in this potboiler directed by Charles Lamont from a script by Karl Brown. She was born in 1861 and was a power on the stage for many years. She acted in a few silents, but came to Hollywood in 1930, with THE ROYAL FAMILY OF BROADWAY, and stayed for seven years. The highlight of her sound pictures is her starring role in Ford's PILGRIMAGE. She retired from the screen in 1937 and passed away in Pelham Manor, New York in 1944.