Films from the very early thirties needed a really good director otherwise they'd end up like this! This is and looks like a cheaply made "also ran" gangster picture from a director who didn't show he knew how to make a talking picture. To be fair to Roy William Neill, his budget was probably about $5 for this but even so, other people at Poverty Row studios made much more entertaining pictures than this.
He doesn't show anything different, imaginative or innovative. He turns what sounds an interesting story into something so boring you'll hate yourself for watching it. It just trapses like an unwelcome headache of grey monotone white noise through your brain.
The familiar story, the themes and the characters have all been explored much better in much better films than in this tiresome and clichéd colour by numbers z picture but it's not the actors' fault this is so dull, it's production quality. Take Mae Clarke, the star of this for example: in the same year this was made she was fabulous and led us all by the heartstrings in WATERLOO ROAD. She was also in the marvellous PUBLIC ENEMY and in FRANKENSTEIN. Two of these were directed by James Whale, the other by William Wellman - both talented and imaginative directors who knew exactly how to make great entertaining pictures with the advent of sound. Roy William Neil wasn't one of those super-talented directors of that era. Mae Clarke is given absolutely no personality in this. Whereas some other less than perfect directors made their films overly melodramatic, this guy does the opposite - there's absolutely no emotional engagement at all with our tragic heroine. Even in the most syrupy Helen Twelvetrees weepie you feel involved but with this you couldn't care less what happens to her.
There is however one, just one positive aspect about this and that's Paul Porcasi. He was one of the greatest "comedy" gangsters of all time. Robert Ellis, playing the other gangster however is almost as funny - but that's unintentional. His 'Dapper Dan' has to be the most unthreatening, pathetic gangsters ever to plague our screens. A perfect storm of appalling and bad acting make Dapper Dan almost embarrassing to watch. Marcia, our good bad girl decides to leave laughable gangster Dapper Dan for the usual clichéd rich guy on the other side of the tracks. This replacement boyfriend is apparently played by a different actor but since he looks absolutely identical and has as much acting ability, I think they may have scrimped a bit on their cast budget as well.
