Should the vague title confound any pre-Code audiences, the trailer makes this movie's salacious intent clear: "As modern as next week's news -- as intimate as milady's boudoir"! There's a lot of bed-hopping on the yacht belonging to moneyed bigwig John Thornley (Lewis Stone): he's got his eye on seducing show girl Doree Macy (Bebe Daniels), but pretty soon his younger business partner Robert (Ben Lyon) is joining Doree for au naturel swims. Add to the confusion when Robert's wife Consuelo (Natalie Moorhead) shows up -- do they really have "an understanding", as Robert swore to Doree that they did? Made the same year as The Public Enemy and Harlow vehicle Platinum Blonde, 1931 was a banner year for shamelessly carnal pre-Code. Blondell would benefit from the career boost of My Past, appearing in Night Nurse (1931) with Clark Gable and enjoying a salary jump to four hundred dollars a week. Keep an eye out for a cameo from a bound copy of the book "The Maltese Falcon", a sly plug for the film (also starring Bebe Daniels) that Warner Brothers was readying for theaters.

By Violet LeVoit