Yes it is and that's what makes this insane film fantastic. Paramount pulled out all the stops with this: a plot with every single cliché ever, the melodrama rating set at level 11 and the most over the top overacting you'll ever see. Gloriously corny!
Some films are so bad they're good - this is actually so very bad, it's actually very good....or maybe I should say entertaining. 'Bad' is a lazy description because this is professionally produced, it looks and sounds classy, it's not some trashy poverty row b-picture. One thing this definitely is not is boring.
The plot might sound like a typical early thirties melodrama but seriously, how mad is this? To fleece a young millionaire, Kay Francis pretends to be his mother - even though she's one year younger than the actor playing the boy! Although she's been estranged from the family for 14 years, she doesn't think 'her son' or her family and friends might wonder why she looks so different! It's not just acted with such sincerity, they all take this so seriously. None of them seem to think any of this is at all odd.
In addition the making many dreadful films, director Stuart Walker also made one exceptionally good one: WHITE WOMAN. Besides benefiting from Charles Laughton and Carol Lombard, that had a lava flow of brilliant subversive humour running through it. I am wondering whether Mr Walker thought that because this picture could end up being so abysmal, surreptitiously he'd make it so deliberately insane that at least it would give him and those in the know, a good laugh?
The crazy acting compliments the nonsensical plot perfectly. The actor playing the blind son is an example of absolutely inspired casting! He is so utterly awful he makes Kay Francis seem like the greatest thespian the world has ever known. Watching a grown man pretending to be a a 17 year old had never been so hilarious.
But of course nobody can overact quite like Kay Francis and she doesn't disappoint here. Forget those rare occasions when you've thought: She's actually not too bad in this one, she's almost natural. No - you'll not think that with this one - this is Kay Francis at her best....or is it worst....no, definitely best. It's her utter unflinching sincerity which she puts into everything she says which gets funnier and funnier as the film progresses. You might think you've seen her overacting before but really, you ain't seen nothing yet! She's so wonderfully awful, she's wonderful. Somehow as much as you find her performance hilarious, you actually engage with her. You start to believe in her! It feels normal when with quivering bottom lip and tears welling up in her eyes she whispers: 'Every woman wants love'....pause and stare wistfully into the distance for a few seconds....'love, in their heart.'....stare even more wistfully into the distance again.
If you love that bizarre unreal Hollywood universe where nothing needs to make sense, an alternate reality populated by Kay Francises and where people only need to meet each other for a couple of minutes before deciding to get married watch this.
