Peccatori

... because with a name like "Sinners in the Sun" I figured it was one of those precodes in a tropical locale with some mad doctor doing odd experiments. But then I read a summary and thought I'd give it a whirl.

It's basically about love and the Great Depression. Doris (Carole Lombard) is a model at a high end boutique. Jimmie (Chester Morris) is a mechanic. They are engaged, but Doris is afraid of poverty, on being dependent on whether some employer thinks you are worth keeping around, and a visit to her apartment and you see why. Doris and her entire extended family, including her grandparents and her underemployed brother and his wife are crammed into this small place, and there is constant bickering. Doris wants Jimmie to own his own garage and be his ow boss before they get married, and eventually this leads to a break-up because Jimmie thinks Doris would be settling for him.

After Jimmie and Doris part, Jimmie becomes the chauffeur and then the husband of an idle rich woman. Doris becomes the mistress of an idle rich married man. They both make these moves because of things they find out that the other has been doing in regards to the opposite sex. Will this whole thing work out? Watch and find out. This boils down to the saying that more than enough money may not make you happy, but less than enough can sure make you miserable. Except the film rather leaves out the second part of that maxim, maybe so Depression era audiences wouldn't get too introspective after seeing this.

It was unusual to see Allison Skipworth play Doris' mother - a kind of Marie Dressler role. She usually plays the older sophisticate. If she doesn't have money she ordinarily pretends that she does. And here she is an ordinary housewife, downtrodden and disheartened by life without ever actually coming out and saying so. Cary Grant makes a few appearances as a rich and unattached guy who'd like have Doris for himself.

One of the most interesting scenes in the film to me - Anderson Lawler in an uncredited role as gigolo to a woman old enough to be his mother. He has a heart to heart with Jimmie about how they are not so different, to Jimmie's horror.