Street of Women (1932)

Street of Women is a 1932 Warner Brothers pre-code melodrama directed by the prolific Archie Mayo.

The subject is marital infidelity and of course the great thing about pre-code movies is that you never know just how stories like this will play out.

Larry Baldwin (Alan Dinehart) is a tycoon who is building the world’s tallest building. In the past three years he has suddenly become immensely successful. They do say that behind every great man there’s a great woman. That’s true here. Except that the woman in this case is not Larry’s wife but his mistress.

His marriage to Lois (Marjorie Gateson) is an empty shell and has been for years.

His mistress is successful dress designer Natalie Upton (Kay Francis). She is his inspiration. They are madly in love. They have been having an affair for three years and this being a pre-code movie it leaves no doubt that they have been sleeping together.

Natalie’s kid brother Clarke (Allen Vincent) has been studying in Paris for three years. Now he’s back and that’s going to lead to a domestic cataclysm. Clarke is very very conventional. He is shocked and enraged at his sister’s illicit relationship.

There’s another complication. Clarke wants to marry Larry’s daughter Doris (Gloria Stuart ).

Larry thinks Doris will understand. She has always claimed to be a modern girl who does not believe in all that stuffy old-fashioned traditional morality stuff.

Unfortunately it turns out that Doris and Clarke are actually fanatical believers in the rigid enforcement of traditional morality.

Things are going to get messy.

Despite wishful thinking on the part of many modern critics and cinephiles pre-code movies by and large did not reject traditional morality. They were not trying to subvert that morality. They were not trying to subvert anything. What you do find in pre-code movies is the suggestion that maybe traditional morality doesn’t need to be rigidly and mercilessly enforced and that maybe moral lapses can be forgiven. That’s what differentiates pre-code movies from post-code movies. Once the Production Code started to be enforced there could be no suggestion that moral lapses could be forgiven. Such lapses had to be ruthlessly punished.

Pre-code movies are unpredictable and exciting because you just don’t know which way they will jump. A story such as this could end happily for Larry and Natalie or it could end in disaster for them. It could end in disaster for everyone.

All the performances are solid but Kay Francis is of course the standout performer. She was one of the great pre-code stars and this role is right in her wheelhouse.

Director Archie Mayo made some notable pre-code movies including the superb Svengali (1931). Under Eighteen and Illicit are also very much worth seeing. It was one those reliable journeyman directors for whom I have a lot of respect.

The characters have some depth and there’s plenty of moral complexity. Natalie and Larry realise that the revelation of their affair has hurt Doris and Clarke and they feel bad about that but at the same time they do not believe they have done anything wrong. All they did was to fall in love. Doris and Clarke are savagely judgmental but at the same time we can make allowances for them because they are very young. They’re not capable of understanding that Natalie and Larry need each other desperately.

This is a good romantic melodrama and it’s very pre-code and it’s highly recommended especially if you’re a Kay Francis fan.

The Warner Archive DVD looks very good.