Alimony Madness

Charlotte Merriam tells her husband, rising architect Leon Ames, she wants a divorce. He offers $40,000 in securities. Her lawyer says she must have alimony also. Ames agrees to $1,000 a month. She won't go to Mexico or Reno, so he agrees to a co-respondent. It turns out to be Helen Chandler. She has been fired as a stenographer and her folks out west need the $100 she'll get. Ames sees what an innocent she is, and tries to shield her, but she is identified.

Ames' practice promptly tanks from the public scandal. He doesn't have the money to pay the alimony and is thrown into jail, whence Miss Chandler rescues him, goes to work for him, and marries him. But the bad times continue while Miss Merriam lives high on the hog.

The first half of this movie is excellent, with Miss Chandler nailing the role, and Ames is excellent, as always. It's the second half and its conversion into a weepy indictment of the depredations of useless women bleeding their ex-husbands dry, that looks ridiculous in its sob story. Director B. Reeves Eason -- credited as "Breezy Eason" -- gets the movie through the second marriage, then largely gives up and finishes it off mechanically. With Blanche Friderici, Alberta Vaughn, and John Ince.