Parole Girl

If you find yourself sleepless at 3 am and you've got an hour and fifteen minutes to kill with Turner Classic Movies, you can do worse than this charming romance that, while mostly predictable, takes you places and keeps up a good pace.

"Parole Girl" comes with a competent cast, pre Hays' era sexuality, and a time capsule visit to 1930's America. I counted at least six improbable plot devices, but, oh--who cares? Bellamy was believable. And I fell in love with the intelligent, cunning Mae Clark.

What guy, sleepless at 3 am wouldn't hope to find himself in Bellamy's predicament with a woman as alluring and devious as Mae Clark's character?

Sylvia Day (Mae Clarke) is working a racket with Tony Grattan where Tony cries out - in a big department store - that he's been robbed and Sylvia runs for the exits. Tony fingers Sylvia as the thief. The department store security guards haul her and Tony into the office of a store manager. Then Tony "discovers" his wallet just slipped down and says that he is very sorry and slips away. Meanwhile Sylvia starts the waterworks and says she has never been so humiliated and intends to sue. She walks away with a five hundred dollar check from the store.

The second time the pair try this they are not so lucky. The insurance company has circulated information about the pair trying this and Sylvia is caught, although Tony gets away. She begs for mercy and says she is not a habitual criminal, and the store manager she is talking to is persuaded, but he needs the OK of his superior, Joe Smith (Ralph Bellamy). Smith says that he can't do that. The insurance company demands that they prosecute or else they cancel the insurance. So Sylvia goes to jail for a year, swearing vengeance against Smith for refusing to even hear her out.

For Sylvia not to be a criminal she certainly and quickly develops the wiles of one. She figures out how to stage a situation in jail where she is the heroine and gets paroled for her bravery. She suddenly sees through her old partner Tony's ulterior motives, AND she manages to frame Smith so that she has him right where she wants him. Smith believes the two were married when he was out on a drunken night on the town celebrating his promotion at the store. The problem is that he is already married to somebody to whom he has been estranged for years but never bothered to divorce, making him a bigamist. And Sylvia knows he is a bigamist. So she makes him go with the ruse that they are legally married so that she doesn't need a job while on parole. Plus she lavishly spends Joe's finite salary on the finest fashions. She says when her parole is over she will let him go about his life. How will this work out? Watch and find out.

Nobody in this situation gets that much sympathy from me, least of all Sylvia. She heard Smith say that it was the insurance company that prevented him from letting her go, but it is his life she chooses to ruin. Joe Smith is fine with thinking he had taken sexual advantage of a complete stranger. He only gets concerned when he thinks he is now married to said stranger.

There are some interesting smaller parts here. Ferdinand Gottschalk as the store owner, Mr. Taylor, is a delight. Although I'd like to think if I was old and lonely, as he says he is, that I would not resort to trying to create surrogate grandchildren and forcing my employees into public displays of affection for my own entertainment. Hale Hamilton is great as Tony, the villain who is much more obvious and not nearly as clever as he thinks that he is.

And finally there is tragic Marie Prevost who, to have such a bit part as far as screen time, plays a very pivotal (and frankly unbelievable) role in the plot. At this point she has lost much of the weight that caused her career to go downhill, but she looks rather ill and haggard too. She'll have only four more credited roles before her death in 1937.

Mae Clarke, she of the grapefruit in the face, and Ralph Bellamy star in "Parole Girl," a 1933 film.

Clarke plays Sylvia, who works a department store con with a male partner. He accuses her of stealing his wallet and yells "stop, thief," they both go to the manager's office, he finds his wallet, she sobs, and the store pays her off.

Unfortunately the police alert the store to the con artists as she's sitting in the office. Terrified of going to prison, she begs the manager to let her go. He wants to, but when he checks with the man above him, Joe Smith (Bellamy) he says he has no power to do that. She begs and sobs, but it's no go.

Sylvia winds up in prison, serving for a year, but she manages to not only start a fire, but work to put it out, and then faint - all part of her plan. She is released due to her heroics. She's not interested in returning to con work. She wants to destroy the life of Joe Smith.

Sylvia approaches Joe while he's smashed and stages a fake marriage, knowing full well he has a wife from whom he's separated. She then blackmails him with his bigamy. They have to act as a married couple until Sylvia's parole is over. Guess what happens.

This could have been an ordinary movie but it isn't, thanks to the nice work of the two stars. Clarke is an underrated actress - she was excellent in the 1930 Waterloo Bridge, which is much grittier than the Taylor-Leigh version. She was a very honest actress, not at all over the top, even though it was the style of the day.

Bellamy, of course, is super. This film was just after the beginning of his awesome 60-year career.

Entertaining.

Parole Girl (1933)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Silly but extremely entertaining drama from Columbia has Mae Clarke once again taking "C" level material and raising it a notch. This time out she plays a troubled but smart woman in a con game with a man (Hale Hamilton) who pretty much owns her. She ends up in jail after getting caught ripping off shopping stores and once behind bars she swears vengeance on the insurance man (Ralph Bellamy) who refused to give her a break and demand that she go to jail. This is an extremely bizarre and strange little gem that will certainly keep fans of "B" movies entertained because you'll never quite know where the thing is going. For starters, the story itself is downright stupid as we're never really given a good reason as to why this woman would be so angry with this man. Why not the judge, store owner or the con man who got her into the racket? You also have to consider the fact that she's never seen this man so how she actually manages to do her thing is never quite clear. Another funny thing with the story is that it of course has to have a few twists and turns, which includes the woman eventually falling for the man but soon her scam backfires once again with a twist that I won't ruin here. Clarke turns in a very good performance and it certainly ranks as one of the best I've seen from her. She's very believable in the early scenes of fear as she begs not to be sent to jail. She's also believable as the hell bent femme fatale out for revenge. She plays both sides of the coin perfectly and her chemistry with Bellamy is very realistic and makes for an interesting 65-minutes. Bellamy, one of my favorite character actors from this period, manages to have all the charm and dignity that we've come to expect from him. Marie Prevost is quite annoying but that's the way her character was meant to be. This film has certainly been forgotten throughout the decades and I'm sure not too many were overly interested in it back when it was released. I'm sure most people, like myself, will be drawn to it because they're fans of FRANKENSTEIN and want to see Clarke in another role. Those people will certainly want to check this film out but fans of "B" movies will as well as the movie goes fast enough to not have any dull moments and in the end it's the perfect filler if you're up late at night and need something quick to watch.

Mae Clarke is in the title role of Parole Girl who while out on parole plots some revenge against store manager Ralph Bellamy who insisted on her arrest. I won't go into the racket as it was quite a pip. But as Mae and her accomplice who didn't get caught Hale Hamilton learned these department do pool intelligence.

After a short stint in prison cut short by her heroic action during a prison fire Clarke is put on parole and she plans some revenge against Bellamy. Using his taste for booze she gets him drunk and marries him. Now there's vengeance for you.

And then the film takes an abrupt and sappy turn as Clarke and Bellamy start falling for each other. I mean, Ralph Bellamy? C'mon.

Giving good performances are Hamilton whose a devil may care con man and really doesn't care about anything and Marie Prevost as Clarke's prison running girl buddy.

But the premise to the whole film is bizarre.