Reform Girl

When the story begins, Lydia is released from prison early. Why? Well, because she's been recruited for a dirty job. It seems that a senator's daughter disappeared long ago and the plan is to have Lydia impersonate her. But it's NOT to extort money out of the politician...it's to use Lydia to discredit him in the upcoming election for governor. However, after the innocent man is framed by Lydia and her employer, she has second thoughts. After all, these people have been nice to her and welcomed her and Lydia feels sorry for them. But she can't do anything as following this smear campaign, she's being held captive in order to make sure the Senator is defeated in the upcoming election.

"Reform Girl" is a low budget film. Despite this, it actually works pretty well due to some decent acting and, more importantly, a pretty good script. As a result, this B-movie is worth seeing and is better than you'd expect. Not exactly brilliant but very good.

Noel Francis is serving time for some crime so heinous this pre-code movie doesn't tell us what it is. Skeets Gallagher gets her out. His boss is running for governor against the well-respected Hale Hamilton. Hamilton's daughter vanished when she was a wee child, so they figure to put her in as the kid, use her as a conduit for information and then a scandal. Miss Francis doesn't have any issue with that. She wants $10,000, half down. It's done and off she goes. But as she gets to see Hamilton up close, she begins to have second thoughts.

It's a cheap second feature directed by Sam Newfield for brother Sigmund, so there's not a lot of frills in evidence. Still, Miss Frncis is a winning personality, even if her all-too-brief turn as. A Warner Brothers starlet didn't pan out. She would abandon the silver screen -- or it would abandon her -- four years later. She would die in 1959, only 53 years old.