Well, it's definitely the best film that I've seen set in Long Beach! And I agree with the majority of IMDB reviewers who call it Ida L's best performance, although I would add that it should share pride of place with "High Sierra", also directed by Raoul Walsh. This leads me to muse on how versatile a director Walsh is. This hard bitten guy, so at home in the gangster, western and war pic genres, aint half bad at chick flics. Indeed, the best scenes of this film revolve around the joys and miseries (mostly the later) of its three main female characters. It is here where Catherine Turney's dialogue from Maritta Wolff's novel is at its sharpest and most insightful. Conversely, when the gals share the screen with Robert Alda's paint by the numbers ladies man/ thug, Bruce Bennet's rather dull, sad sack jazz pianist and Don McGuire's eternally jealous husband Turney's writing gets kinda noir cliche and mushy. So let's give this film a generous B minus for its fine, jazzy score, the performances of Lupino and Dolores Moran and a nice Alan Hale turn as a kindly if lecherous nightclub manager.
PS...When Bennet plays the piano he looks eerily like Hoagy Carmichael.
PS...When Bennet plays the piano he looks eerily like Hoagy Carmichael.