arfdawg-1 Plot. Bill Bailey is a Los Angeles bail bondsman who lives in a world of complete, casual corruption, where all he has to do is pick up the phone to get the charges against a client dismissed. He falls in love with slumming socialite who bluntly and startlingly declares her sexual preferences with this immortal line: "If I could find a man who would be my master and give me a good thrashing, I'd follow him around like a dog on a leash."Bizzaro pre-code movie that rambles along with scene after scene and virtually no real cohesive plot. It's rather boring

calvinnme ...who spent so much time over at RKO playing the sweet young thing. Dee plays the catalyst of the entire story, even though, sometimes, you won't even know what she is up to.The main character, however, is George Bancroft as Bill Bailey, a bail bondsman and PR man extraordinaire. It shows how well connected he is as just about every criminal in town has bail through Bailey. He knows the attorneys, the judges, and most of the underworld. He carries around cigars that say "Bailey For Bail" on them. It's mentioned later that he was once a cop that got thrown off the force for graft, and even though he's a gray character, he plays this like Popeye - "I am what I am", and you know something, I liked him. I liked him because he was on the level about who he was and what he did. He has a girlfriend (Judith Anderson as Ruby Darling) who seems to be a madam, maybe not, but for sure runs an upscale saloon complete with torch singers. And she, like Bailey, "is what she is". She does not pretend.And then a different kind of customer walks into his establishment - socialite Elaine Talbart (Frances Dee), arrested for shoplifting, and hands him a six thousand dollar ring as collateral for much smaller bail. She claims the whole thing is a big misunderstanding (it is not). At first Bailey is just intrigued because her family is so wealthy, but soon he is falling for the girl. However, Elaine's big downfall, and the downfall of everybody she encounters, is that she is a spoiled brat who is addicted to excitement and danger. And THAT is why she starts a relationship with Bailey. He shows her a side of life she has never seen before.One more thing, towards the beginning of the film Ruby's baby brother gets out of prison. Nope. There was no mistake. Her little brother Drury is a thief and probably will always be one. He doesn't like violence, he just likes money and isn't partial to hard work.And then one day at the races when Bailey is with Elaine, over walks good looking Drury, and when she finds out his past she gets a twinkle in her eye...a ticket to even more excitement! Boy, has she got that right because Drury is about to pull another bank job. When he skips town with Bailey's bail and with his girl, it starts warfare with Ruby and the underworld on one side and Bailey, who realigns himself with the police, on the other side. The thing that nobody knows is that the act of betrayal that starts it all is caused by a decision Elaine makes unilaterally. How does this all work out and what was that decision? Watch and find out. I'll just say that the end of this film was a blast.There are some great individual scenes in this one that are strictly precode - at Ruby's, Bailey offers a gentleman a cigar, "he" turns around and turns out to be a woman in a man's suit. She takes a puff of the cigar and says "you big sissy!". Bailey busts out laughing. A woman comes into Bailey's office with a boy about 15 and wants to put up his bail. She says "her boy is a good boy". Bailey asks what the charge is and she says "assault" - that was code for rape in even the precode era. Bailey asks how old the girl was, and the boy says 38. Bailey laughs at the thought - a thought that would not be funny today. Finally, a woman runs screaming out of a building claiming that a man advertised for artists' models, she showed up, and he attacked her. Elaine asks where is the artist? The woman points to an office, and Elaine grabs the ad and walks deliberately towards the office. Hot stuff from Fox, a studio not usually associated with precode stuff.

kidboots This is an excellent gritty thriller - just the sort of film you associate with George Bancroft. He plays Bill Bailey, a larger than life bail bondsman and a celebrity among high society and the criminal element. "I make my money off losers" - he makes his money extortingassets off his clients. In one of the first scenes an elderly woman comes to him about helping her young son, once he realises she owns her own house he gets her to leave the deeds with his receptionist. He is that kind of a guy!!!His lady love, Ruby Darling, is played, extraordinarily, by Judith Anderson - she owns a speak-easy, but they have known each other for a long time and are more like husband and wife. She helped him get to his present position of power. She also has a criminal brother, Drury (Chick Chandler), who has just been caught for a bank robbery - if he is found guilty he will go to jail for life on the 3 strikes you're out plan.The big reason to see this film is Frances Dee. She is just a sensation as the "drop dead gorgeous" socialite, Elaine Talbert, who first comes to Bill's attention when she is caught shop-lifting at a big department store. Bill falls for her but it is quite clear something is wrong - she gets a crazy gleam in her eye when she hears about all the crooked things he has had to do in his line of business. You just know when she meets Drury that she is going to fall for him in a big way - after all he has just masterminded a daring bank robbery. Her views about how she likes to be treated by men raise a few eyebrows as well. Nymphomaniac, sado masochist, there is nothing that Elaine won't do - and Frances Dee pulls it off with aplomb. She had already given a superb performance in "The Silver Cord" as a young girl tottering on the brink of madness. It is a pity she was soon to wind down her career in favour of marriage to handsome Joel McCrea but she definitely left some wonderful performances. Because Elaine double crosses Bill (keeping the $50,000 bail money and giving him worthless bonds in exchange) it looks like he has left Drury high and dry so Ruby organises some of the mob to destroy him. She realises her mistake at the end and madly hurries down to the pool hall to save his life (the eight ball has been filled with enough explosive to kill him). Being a pre-code you don't really know what to expect. The real ending is a scream. Elaine, hurrying to Bill after being thrown over by Drury, meets a girl who has been enticed to a man's room with the promise of modelling work. "He threw me around, he bruised my arms and really roughed me up" - Elaine's response "What's the man's name and what room is he in". The gleam in her eye leave you in no doubt that she definitely does not want to report him!!!By the way the girl who is socked at the beginning - "Red's" girl - is the beautiful Noel Francis who played sultry vixens to perfection!! Blossom Seeley, a legendary singer of the time, sings "Frankie and Johnny", "On San Francisco Bay" and "My Melancholy Baby".Highly Recommended.

marcslope One of the most interesting of the Fox pre-code talkies, for several reasons: 1) It has nice girl Frances Dee as a perverse and masochistic society miss, snarling and hip-shaking and shocking the elite. 2) It has Judith Anderson, in a swell backless evening gown, playing a moll, against-the-grain casting of the most inspired sort, even if the movie never explains her high-tone Brit accent vs. her brother's American Midwest elongated vowels. (She also played a gangster years later in "Lady Scarface," but it's a much less interesting film.) 3) You get to see Blossom Seeley, the great vaudevillian, sob a couple of torch songs, and she's the real thing. 4), and most fascinatingly: George Bancroft plays a no- better-than-he-should-be bail bondsman who works both sides of the street and is terribly corrupt, yet the movie likes him, we like him, and he doesn't have to repent for it. It's lively and violent and funny, and, unlike so many Fox early talkies, it has the fast pace of a good Paramount or Warners flick from the same period.