Parole Girl (1933)

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Simply Perfect

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Bad girl Mae Clarke is too involved in a racket that results in payment over being wrongfully accused of being a pick-pocket. Along with shady partner Hale Hamilton, Clarke goes from department store to department store, using the phony accusation of stealing Hamilton's wallet as a way of extorting money from the department store management. She doesn't count on an insurance company catching onto her racket, ending up in jail for her petty crime yet paroled for trying to put out a fire she deliberately started simply so she could be paroled. Recognizing drunken department store insurance manager Ralph Bellamy who had refused to help her escape a prison sentence, Clarke sets up a phony marriage (with Hamilton as the justice of the peace) and sets up house with him. When con-artist fellow prisoner Marie Prevost shows up at her door, Clarke is too tempted to join in on other rackets, but will her growing feelings for Bellamy, the sap of all saps, keep her from going through with abandoning him? A clever, if somewhat preposterous plotline, helps make this pre-code drama about bad girls turning good work, along with the great performances of Clarke (aka "the grapefruit girl" from "The Public Enemy"), Bellamy, Hamilton, Ferdinand Gottschalk (as Bellamy's boss) and especially Prevost. The script by Norman Krasna is filled with clever innuendos and plot developments, and the direction by Edward F. Cline is fast moving and tight. Every set-up of each plot development is exceptionally clever, and as a result, this ends up being one of the great sleepers of the pre-code drama that just a year later would be too scandalous to be made into a film. Clarke is extremely unique as a leading lady and gives one of her best performances. Gottschalk is adorable as the lovable old coot who loves to cook and enjoys watching Bellamy and Clarke be affectionate as they dine on his delectables, even if their marriage unbeknownst to him is a sham. Prevost, in her last major role, is an absolute delight, stealing every moment she is on screen, making me wonder why she would soon be reduced to bit parts that lead to an early death just a few years later.

With a title like that - and with Mae Clarke best remembered today as a punchbag for Jimmie Cagney - one approaches this film expecting gritty lowlife drama. This expectation is reinforced by an extremely atmospheric opening sequence (which makes excellent use of tracking shots and realistic sound), seemingly shot in a genuine department store, with store detective Lee Phelps pursuing Miss Clarke as she heads for the exit after a customer loudly accuses her of picking his pocket. She ends up going to jail after the manager of a different store, Ralph Bellamy, refuses her pleas for mercy for a different offence (Bellamy's explanation that "the store's rule has always been to prosecute, our insurance company insists upon it" carries the hint that the brutal, unyielding capitalist system bears some of the blame for her plight); and her time in jail culminates in a superbly staged sequence set in the prison workshop when she demonstrates neither for the first or last time her adroitness as a manipulator by deliberating starting a fire and then 'heroically' turning an extinguisher on it.The film's title and her journey through the lower depths can in retrospect can be seen as Depression-era window dressing serving as a prologue to the vengeful game of marital cat-&-mouse Clarke then begins at the expense of the hapless Bellamy when she emerges from prison, which comprises the rest of the film. Five years earlier with a racier title implying sexual rather than criminal intrigue this story could easily have been a vehicle for the likes of Norma Shearer, with both the many preposterous plot contrivances resembling those of a silent film, and Clarke's chic boyish haircut reinforcing her resemblance to a silent film heroine. Aided by elegant photography by the great Joseph August, Eddie Cline so deftly handles both the early action & drama and the later scenes of sexual tension that it may after all be worth investigating his filmography beyond the vehicles for W.C.Fields with which his name is associated.A charming cameo by Ferdinand Gottschalk as Bellamy's boss deserves particular mention in a uniformly good cast; and Mae Clarke here turns in a real star performance displaying a wide emotional range as well as a rapport with Bellamy. Unfortunately she was on the very brink of a precipitous fall from grace as the result of the double-whammy of a nervous breakdown brought on by overwork in June 1932, followed by a car accident in which her jaw was broken the month 'Parole Girl' was released in March 1933. She thus well exemplifies that lost generation whose work continues to surprise and delight discoverers of pre-Code Hollywood.

Mae Clarke is in the title role of Parole Girl who while out on parole plots some revenge against store manager Ralph Bellamy who insisted on her arrest. I won't go into the racket as it was quite a pip. But as Mae and her accomplice who didn't get caught Hale Hamilton learned these department do pool intelligence.After a short stint in prison cut short by her heroic action during a prison fire Clarke is put on parole and she plans some revenge against Bellamy. Using his taste for booze she gets him drunk and marries him. Now there's vengeance for you.And then the film takes an abrupt and sappy turn as Clarke and Bellamy start falling for each other. I mean, Ralph Bellamy? C'mon.Giving good performances are Hamilton whose a devil may care con man and really doesn't care about anything and Marie Prevost as Clarke's prison running girl buddy. But the premise to the whole film is bizarre.

I recorded this movie and watched it in the morning. It was well worth it, even though it was short and the plot is sometimes very contrived, but then again most movie plots are contrived. Mae Clark did a very good job playing a woman who is basically good but due to circumstances does not always follow the most moral path. I won't go into more but the movie was very entertaining. You can tell the movie is pre-code and that adds just enough of an edge to make it interesting. Ralph Bellamy did a good job of playing the forced upon husband. He was quite entertaining. Mr. Taylor played by Ferdinand Gottschalk was an interesting character it reminded me of the old days when having a wife and kids increased your chance of promotion at the company. Those days are gone, but it does give you an insight into what life was pre-1960's.