User reviews

Poor Ruth Chatterton! This film is a prime example of why she left Paramount to go to Warners. She plays a Free thinking Russian who marries a stuffy British man. The family is naturally displeased and show it. They have a daughter. Ruth is indiscreet with another brit,played by Ivor Novello and is of course run out of England. Being that this is before the code she doesn't end up in the gutter but wealthy in Paris. The years fly by and the daughter now grown ends up in Paris, desperately in need of guidance. The plot and dialogue were dated even in 1931. What makes this film is the really wonderful performance by Ruth Chatterton. She makes up believe this film and plays the character of Anna almost like she is real. She is full of emotion, she makes mistakes and accepts them and accepts the lot in life she is given. It is easy to see why a young Bette Davis was in awe of her. This is a rarely seen film but one worth watching for Miss Chatterton.

Russian emigree Ruth Chatterton marries Geoffrey Kerr, a British officer about to go off to fight in the Great War. She bears a daughter, but her in-laws are thoughtless and cruel, while Chatterton is thoughtless and foolish. When Kerr sends her away to Cannes while he stands for Parliament, she leaves the train to go with Ivor Novello, then decides to return to her daughter and husband. However, the train has crashed, and everyone in her car has been killed. Kerr and his family blather a lot about her betrayal, so she leaves again, to become a cocotte in Paris.

Fast forward to 1931. Chatterton is still practicing her trade. Her daughter has grown up to be Jill Esmond. She and Bramwell Fletcher are in love, but he is an architectural student, and Kerr won't let them marry. So, Miss Esmond leaves, goes to Paris to be with Fletcher, and winds up at a wild party, where she encounters Miss Chatterton.

It's a remake of the Pola Negri vehicle THREE SINNERS, and it's all about suffering in mink, wild coincidences and the usual movie world in which there seem to be only about twenty people in Britain and France, so they run into each other. Miss Chatterton, is as usual, very good. She is very Russian, very depressed and very moral in her own thoughtless way, while everyone else is simply thoughtless. It is that thoughtlessness, as well as the wild coincidences, that annoy me very much.... that, and given Miss Chatterton's very self-assured performance, everyone else seems mean and cruel and selfish.

Combining the plots of MADAME X and EAST LYNNE, with a touch of the far later TO EACH HIS OWN, this very turgid early talkie is ultra-melodramatic with poor acting all round, with of course the exception of Chatterton, who bites into her character - a Russian emigree, the toast of Paris, who marries, inadvisably, into a stuffy British family, from which she rebels. Later she is able to give her grown daughter guidance, with the latter not knowing the woman is her mother.

Ivor Novello is seen in 7 scenes as a former friend, who rescues her from her marriage, only to lose her again: restaurant, garden party, tete a tete at party, lunch, train, departure from train, Paris apartment. He is as always in his six talkies, stiff and unable to act for the camera. His success in silents was undisputed, but luckily, his failure in talkies did not stop his career. He went on to write 8 musicals for London society, as composer and librettist and win the hearts of Britains in this capacity.

Ultimately, for Chatterton fans only.

When the movie begins, Anna Keremazoff (Ruth Chatterton) marries a rich but very weak twit. His fancy family is not at all happy that instead of marrying a society girl he married some common Russian lady...and the family never makes Anna feel welcome in any way. As for her husband Jimmy, since he's so weak and ineffectual, he does nothing to support his wife and actually eventually sides with them against her. Not surprisingly, Anna is miserable and has a brief affair. What's next? See the film.

Listening to Ruth Chatterton put on a heavy and fake sounding Russian accent strikes the viewer immediately. You can't help but be taken out of the story by this and it's obvious that this is outside her acting range. The stilted dialog sure didn't help either.

If it sounds like I was not thrilled by the movie, you are right. Its long-suffering mother angle was common back in the day (with films such as "Madame X", which ALSO starred Chatterton, being adored by the public)...and my advice is to see one of them instead. This one is just stilted and silly...and almost exclusively due to the silly Russian character.