Há Mulheres Assim

Molly Louvain is a girl who has become pregnant by a rich young fellow that loves her and wants to marry her. He has told her that he intends to tell his mother that night before Molly gets to his house to attend his birthday party. However, when Molly shows up at the family estate she is told by the butler that mother and son left suddenly for Europe. Apparently Molly's fiancé loved mother's millions more than he loved Molly and no doubt Molly's would-have-been mother-in-law could not tolerate the idea of a member of the huddled masses being her future daughter-in-law. All alone in the world, Molly turns to shady character Nicky Gant, who takes her away from her home town and out on the road. Molly figures he's possibly financing their way with stick-ups, but Molly asks no questions as she has a baby to think of. One day Nick gets in a shoot-out with the cops with Molly at the wheel of the car, and suddenly Molly is up to her neck in Nick's past and present illegal activities. She dyes her hair blonde and decides to hide out under a false name in a small apartment until the heat is off. Molly has two problems that complicate matters even further - she is unable to go check on her baby, who she has left with kindly acquaintances, and ambitious reporter Scotty Cornell lives across the hall and is determined to find Molly Louvain and crack the story of a lifetime.

This film is watchable largely because nobody plays a woman suffering from the internal moral struggle of good versus evil like Ann Dvorak (as Molly Louvain) and nobody plays the smart aleck reporter that will do anything for a story like Lee Tracy (as Scotty Cornell). However, the film seems incomplete in so many ways. There is no chemistry between Tracy and Dvorak at all, and a story like this needs their chemistry in order to have their relationship in the film seem something other than tacked on. The ending is also woefully incomplete. It seems like Warners ran out of budget and the powers that be just said "stop here and write some dialogue to round this thing out".

I'd recommend this just to see Lee Tracy and Ann Dvorak do the kind of acting they do best, just don't expect the kind of precode sizzle you saw in any of James Cagney's and Joan Blondell's films.

Warner Brothers used to put out gritty crime films that were unmistakable, and this one is no exception. And happily, it's pre-code, which is even better.

Ann Dvorak is Molly Louvain, who is hoping to marry a wealthy young man since she's carrying his baby. He promises to tell his mother about them, but he must have run into some problems -- such as disinheritance. He and mom have gone to Europe by the time Molly gets to the house to celebrate his birthday.

Miserable, Molly takes up with Nick Gant (Leslie Fenton, Dvorak's future husband), a crook, and can raise her daughter comfortably since he's good at robbery. However, Molly is the wheel man when Nick has a shootout with the cops, and she goes on the lam after leaving her child with someone she trusts.

Molly dyes her hair blond and takes an apartment in a false name.Alas, there's a reporter across the hall (Lee Tracy) who wants to find Molly so he can have a career-making story. She gets a job as a dance hall hostess and runs into a bellhop she knew, who was crazy about her (Richard Cromwell). She and Jimmie have to go on the run after Nick shows up again and gets them into more trouble. Then guess who she runs into who's hot on her trail.

Fast-moving, fast-talking film with a lively performance by Lee Tracy, who has great chemistry with Dvorak. The striking Dvorak was a perfect '30s film actress, acting in a style that went well with those films. Today it would be considered overdone. She hated being at Warners because they gave her below average movies and next to no money -- she found out she was making the same salary as the little boy in Three on a Match, and she wasn't happy. She eventually moved to England, did some films, and devoted herself to war service. She never liked Hollywood and ultimately retired.

Richard Cromwell was a matinée idol for a short time but doesn't register much, though he was cute. Gay, he was Angela Lansbury's first husband for a few months, and before film stardom and after it, he enjoyed a very successful career as an artist.

All in all, a watchable film with a crackerjack performance by Lee Tracy and it's always good to see Ann Dvorak.

Ann Dvorak was always worth watching, she often stole scenes in support and was far from bland when in lead roles. Lee Tracy likewise. Have a lot of great admiration of Michael Curtiz and he directed a few of my favourite films of all time (have named them in some of my other reviews of his work), so it was interesting to see one of his early works. The story sounded sort of interesting, though had the traps of being unrealistic and melodramatic.

'The Strange Love of Molly Louvin' is worth a one-time watch, if not much more than that. It has a good deal of good things, such as the production values and leads, but also a good deal of bad, such as a story that never quite comes together. All did much better things, Curtiz even did better at this early stage of his career. 'The Strange Love of Molly Lauvin' is not a terrible film but it is just not a great one. Don't really consider it particularly good either and only slightly above average curio level.

Will start with 'The Strange Love of Molly Louvin's' good things. Dvorak, very early on in her career, carries the film well in a not easy role to pull off, while having an issue with the character herself Dvorak made the absolute most of what she has and is in control of her material rather than the other way around. Tracy is even better in a role perfect for him, he is both charming and amusing and gives his character a likeable snap and wit. Actually thought that Dvorak and Tracy did have chemistry here and it was done very nicely, their banter raising a smile. Most of the rest of the supporting cast are solid too, Guy Kibee and Frank McHugh are good value.

It is a good looking film as well, stylishly shot without being filmed play-like and the settings and costumes are handsome without being too glossy. The music doesn't overbear and is not too constant. The script has moments, especially in the banter between Dvorak and Tracy and the story does liven up when Tracy appears. Curtiz gave much better and much more distinctive and refined direction later on but does more than competently here in terms of visually and some atmosphere.

Sadly, 'The Strange Love of Molly Louvin' is brought down by the story which never really comes together. Do agree that it did feel incomplete and choppy, like there were scenes filmed that never made it into the finished product which would have helped it make more sense. The ending is abrupt to the point of not feeling like an ending at all and did agreed feel like the writers were fighting severe time constraints and ran out of time. The story also came over as ridiculous and very difficult to find any believability in, didn't mind so much that it was cliched and was a very slow starter (coming to life when Tracy enters the picture) but did mind that there is a real lack of realism throughout.

Also felt that the script was confused tonally. At some points it is very melodramatic and soapy, doing this to an overwrought degree, and at other points there were attempts at very hit and miss comedy that didn't always gel and the gear changes between the two weren't always seamless. It would have been better to stick to just one of them rather than attempting both. Richard Cromwell was pretty bland and if there was anybody that Dvorak didn't have any chemistry with it was him.

Concluding, above average curio but very little exceptional here and quite strange. 6/10

Fast little Warners item, from a play by Maurine Watkins--who wrote the source material for "Chicago," and this hard-boiled B is very much cut from the same cloth, with big-city corruption, tough-talking dames, and vice not always unrewarded. Ann Dvorak, always good in this sort of part, is the girl from the wrong side of the tracks whose attempts to crash high society are thwarted, and ends up a fugitive, for reasons she's not quite guilty and not quite innocent of. She's also an unwed mom, and not entirely an unsympathetic one, this being a year before they started fully enforcing the Production Code. Lee Tracy plays, as he was born to play, a fast-talking, fast-thinking newspaperman, and watching him at his peak is sort of like watching Cagney--he's so lively he's impossible not to like, even playing a reprobate like this. The story doesn't quite hang together: If Molly was really abandoned by her mom at seven, as she states early on, she's only 16 at the start of the film, which makes no sense at all. And while nobody, not even Tracy, is able to recognize the peroxide version of Molly as the same on-the-lam gal in the picture they have of her, her infant daughter does, at once. The tone's uneven, too, veering between melodrama and uneasy comedy. But Dvorak and Tracy are so watchable, and the supporting cast (Richard Cromwell, Guy Kibbee, Frank McHugh) so quintessential early-'30s Warners, it's a fine time-waster.

THE STRANGE LOVE OF MOLLY LOUVAIN pushes her to look for love with all the wrong men, leading inevitably to unwed pregnancy, betrayal & murder...

This obscure little crime film highlights the kind of fast-moving, tough-talking picture which Warner Bros. did so well in the early 1930's. Good production values help tremendously, but the biggest asset is the piston-powered performance of Lee Tracy as a cynical, amoral reporter. Although his character doesn't appear until 30 minutes into the story, once on screen he dominates his scenes, as he typically did during his heyday. This picture was made shortly before Tracy moved to MGM for his 5 memorable appearances there in 1933. His spectacular fall from grace would spin him out to the minor studios, but here he's in his prime, or nearly so.

The other two sides to the film's romantic triangle are made up of Ann Dvorak, very good in the title role, and Richard Cromwell, impressive as the innocent college kid infatuated with her. A sprinkling of character actors - Guy Kibbee, Leslie Fenton, Frank McHugh & Charles Middleton - add to the film's success.

Movie mavens will recognize J. Farrell MacDonald as a murdered cop, silent movie comic 'Snub' Pollard as a bill collector & Louise Beavers as a washroom attendant, all uncredited.

The film's rather gamey plot proclaims its pre-Production Code status.