Few fallen women in '30s films fell as attractively as Helen Twelvetrees. It helped that the petite blonde seemed somehow too innocent to understand all the sin that surrounded her, particularly in the pre-Code films that made her a star. She defined her type as "the perpetually pure-at-heart street-walker, always drooping over bars while some director says, "Now, Helen, you must be very sweet about this naughty line. Remember, you haven't the faintest idea what it means!" She fell precipitously playing the title role in this 1931 weepie. First she discovers husband James Hall is cheating on her, so she divorces him but leaves their daughter in his wealthy mother's care. As she builds a career in business, she pins her hopes on young reporter Robert Ames only to find out he, too, is a cheat. That leads to a series of empty flings until, years later, she discovers an ex-lover about to deflower her daughter (Anita Louise, the only actress pretty enough to pass as Twelvetrees's child) and shoots him. It all had Depression-era audiences eagerly reaching for their handkerchiefs, with only Lilyan Tashman and Joan Blondell, as her gold-digging girlfriends, on hand for comic relief.

By Violet LeVoit