Pre-Code melodrama about childhood friends Ann Dvorak, Joan Blondell, and Bette Davis whose lives remain intertwined as they grow up. Dvorak is the good girl who marries millionaire Warren William, but soon grows bored in their marriage and seeks escape with low-level crook Lyle Talbot. Meanwhile, troubled showgirl Joan Blondell steps in to take care of Dvorak's son and eventually marries her ex-husband as Dvorak descends further and further into a life of desperation.
Davis unfortunately, isn't given much to do with her role and stays largely in the background. Apparently director Mervyn LeRoy was not happy with her performance here, which perhaps explains her lack of screentime in the final film.
Humphrey Bogart turns up in an early appearance as a gangster, and his star presence really dominates the scenes he appears in.
There's an inordinate amount of time spent on the newspaper headline montages showing the passing of the years through the events of the day. Aside from indicating the passage of time in the three friends' lives, it seems redundant after a point, especially since the whole film runs just 62 minutes.
Virginia Davis, star of Disney's silent Alice series, plays Blondell's character as a young girl in the opening scenes.
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