Notorious but Nice
Cast & Crew
Richard Thorpe
Marian Marsh
Betty Compson
Donald Dillaway
Rochelle Hudson
John St. Polis
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
Jennie Jones, a poor clerk, hesitates to accept Dick Hamilton's marriage proposal, although they love each other, because she thinks that her employer, John J. Martin, the executor of Dick's late father's estate, will find a way to deprive him of his inheritance should they marry. After Dick talks her into saying "yes," Martin, whose daughter Connie desires Dick, sends him to check on his Montana interests and then tries to buy Jennie off. When she refuses, he fires her and keeps her from getting other work. He also arranges for Dick's letters to her to be stolen by her roominghouse neighbor, nightclub hostess Millie Sprague. Jennie is soon evicted for non-payment of rent. Not having eaten in two days, she accepts the offer of a man in the park to a meal. The man, in Martin's employ, lures her to a notorious cafe and gets her drunk. When Dick, having just returned, is told by Martin that Jennie is at the cafe, he goes there and sees the man with his arm around her. After punching the man, Dick is thrown out before Jennie can explain. After Millie finds her unconscious at the roominghouse, she learns from a doctor that Jennie, suffering from starvation and nervous shock, must be hospitalized. Taking her side, Millie puts Jennie in an expensive hospital and forces Martin to foot the bill. When Jennie recovers and learns that Dick has left town, she listens to Millie's advice to forget him. She soon marries Millie's boss, racketeer Joe Charney, who showers her with expensive clothes and jewelry in which she takes no interest. Connie, now engaged to Dick, brings him to Joe's nightclub, and when Jennie sees him, she tries to explain the incident in the cafe, but Dick refuses to listen. Joe, thinking that Jennie still loves Dick, berates her in his office for making a "sap" of him. As she covers her face and cries, someone fires three shots into Joe and plants the gun in her lap. Jennie is tried for Joe's murder and found guilty. In her statement to the court, she states that she came to the city to find her father, who ran out on her mother and tried to annul their marriage. The marriage, she learned, could not be annulled, and she reveals that she discovered her father to be John Martin. Before Jennie is sentenced, Millie interrupts the proceedings and presents evidence that she and two detectives have gathered, which proves that a colleague of Joe's was paid to kill him by a competitor. This causes pandemonium in the courtroom, and Dick and Jennie subsequently are reconciled.
Director
Richard Thorpe
Cast
Marian Marsh
Betty Compson
Donald Dillaway
Rochelle Hudson
John St. Polis
Henry Kolker
J. Carrol Naish
Dewey Robinson
Robert Ellis
Wilfred Lucas
Jane Keckley
Robert Frazer
Louise Beavers
Crew
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
According to a The Exhibitor news item, Henry Kolker replaced Edmund Breese in the cast. According to a Daily Variety news item, this film was placed on the Catholic Church's "condemned" list.
