Transgression

Transgression is another look at a turbulent marriage during the slightly-naughty early 1930s in film. From the very beginning, we are given numerous examples of how absent minded and silly Elsie Maury (Kay Francis) is. Her husband Robert (Paul Cavanagh) is off to India without her, so she will go to Paris, which seems to be just asking for trouble in this pre-Hayes-Code flick. Paul Cavanagh had only been in movies a couple years, and would go on to do many early TV appearances and movies, including quite a few horror films. Kay Francis had her start in "Coconuts" with the Marx brothers, and was probably best known as the lead actress in Man Wanted, King of the Underworld, or Confession. While quite beautiful, Francis' sometime stares wide-eyed into the camera, trying to give the impression she is thinking quite hard. The sound quality in Transgression is pretty bad, but it was 1931. Ricardo Cortez (had a couple of leading roles in the 1920's and 1930's) plays Arturo, Elsie's Spanish lover. Also, in the opening scene, Elsie's mother is played by Nance O'Neil, who had played Mercedes in the first full length version of Count of Monte Cristo 1913 (and was a close friend of Lizzie Borden...) Interesting outdoor scenes of Spain, which probably are not authentic. There are surprises, suspense, and plot twisting within the movie that helps to keep it interesting. Starts slow and goofy, gets better as it goes along.