Review of Virtue (1932) by Ben D — 12 Jul 2012
It is not great by any stretch of the imaginations, but this Pre-Hays code quickie, about a streetwalker falling in love with a hooker before becoming embroiled in a case of mistaken identity and murder, is certainly very watchable.
Carole Lombard is excellent as Mae, the streetwalker - and if she is emblematic of how streetwalkers looked in 1930s America, then boy they must have been busy! So elegent and refined! - and Pat O'Brian invests his taxi driver Jimmy Doyle with a certain amount of depth and conflict. In fact, the two leads invest this quickie with more than it probably deserved.
This might not pass much muster today, but it's not all bad. It is certainly a fascinating insight into what Hollywood was doing before Will H. Hays.
The director is Edward Buzzell who directed Go West and At The Circus, two Marx Brothers films and one of the Thin Men sequels, which starred Carole Lombard's first husband, Dick Powell. This film also references her second husband, Clark Gable. 1930s Hollywood was a small place!
This review of Virtue (1932) was written by Ben D on 12 Jul 2012.
Virtue has generally received mixed reviews.
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