First feature of Willis Kent Productions which specialized in crime and chillers - the type of genre craved by the cinema going audiences of the early 30s. What elevates this movie above the exploitation grind is the stunning cinematography of Ernest Laszlo, his first film but he went on to create some dazzling camera-work for "Judgement at Nuremburg"(1960) and "Kiss Me Deadly" (1955). Also Virginia Roye looking like a young Joan Crawford who excels in the role of Fanny, initially a sassy flapper but drugs and the getting of them reduce her to "the world's oldest profession"!! She should have gone on to other things but this was her last and biggest role!!
After a very high minded lecture (via titles) the film starts down at the farm as Eddie's (Owen Gorin) halcyon days are soon to end. His mother (Florence Turner, the only name in the movie) has found a place for him in a city firm but it's just an excuse to have him look for his missing sister, Grace, who hasn't been heard of since she hit the big smoke (city)!!
All fingers and thumbs in the Ladies Underwear Wrapping and Fitting Dept. gets the country boy noticed by flirty Fannie who introduces him to a new type of "headache powder" to sooth his nerves and homesickness!! Soon his headaches are forgotten, he wants to see some big city life and finding his sister is put into the too hard basket!! Unfortunately he runs into her in a night club - she is now the girl of Handsome Nick, a notorious gangster and doesn't want to know Eddie - telling the hick to go back to the country where he belongs!! By now Eddie is in his own hell - both he and Fanny have been sacked for petty thievery and as the titles(and their make up) show, they have descended from "snow" (cocaine), "the needle" (heroin and morphine) to "the black smoke" (opium). Once again Roye has the heaviest dramatics and she handles them with ability (not just looks and stares)!!
For all her second billing as Mary Jane, Thelma Daniels is left back at the farm - with Eddie and Fanny whooping it up in the city. When all the fun has evaporated, Eddie yearns more and more for his simpler, earlier life with Mary Jane until Fanny, probably the nicest person in the movie, decides to do the decent thing.
This movie seemed to be the "kiss of death" to careers - Owen Gorin was a German actor who had had a reasonable career in Germany - this proved his last movie!! And Florence Dudley who had the role of Eddie's sister Grace, apart from a proper role as Miss Manning in "Party Girl" (1930), spent her career in bits, usually as "gangster's moll" or "sailor's girlfriend"!!
Highly Recommended.
After a very high minded lecture (via titles) the film starts down at the farm as Eddie's (Owen Gorin) halcyon days are soon to end. His mother (Florence Turner, the only name in the movie) has found a place for him in a city firm but it's just an excuse to have him look for his missing sister, Grace, who hasn't been heard of since she hit the big smoke (city)!!
All fingers and thumbs in the Ladies Underwear Wrapping and Fitting Dept. gets the country boy noticed by flirty Fannie who introduces him to a new type of "headache powder" to sooth his nerves and homesickness!! Soon his headaches are forgotten, he wants to see some big city life and finding his sister is put into the too hard basket!! Unfortunately he runs into her in a night club - she is now the girl of Handsome Nick, a notorious gangster and doesn't want to know Eddie - telling the hick to go back to the country where he belongs!! By now Eddie is in his own hell - both he and Fanny have been sacked for petty thievery and as the titles(and their make up) show, they have descended from "snow" (cocaine), "the needle" (heroin and morphine) to "the black smoke" (opium). Once again Roye has the heaviest dramatics and she handles them with ability (not just looks and stares)!!
For all her second billing as Mary Jane, Thelma Daniels is left back at the farm - with Eddie and Fanny whooping it up in the city. When all the fun has evaporated, Eddie yearns more and more for his simpler, earlier life with Mary Jane until Fanny, probably the nicest person in the movie, decides to do the decent thing.
This movie seemed to be the "kiss of death" to careers - Owen Gorin was a German actor who had had a reasonable career in Germany - this proved his last movie!! And Florence Dudley who had the role of Eddie's sister Grace, apart from a proper role as Miss Manning in "Party Girl" (1930), spent her career in bits, usually as "gangster's moll" or "sailor's girlfriend"!!
Highly Recommended.