. . . Ann Sheridan, that is. And they didn't call her the "Oomph Girl" for nothing.
She's worldly (mostly underworld) straight- forward, knows the score, and completely direct. What's more, you believe and trust her . . . nothing underhanded here.
At one point she, as Nora Prentis says, "I may not have been handled with care, but I'm not shop-worn." That about sums her up.
There's no other quite like Sheridan, and she can make a wisecrack in a flash, partly for levity and partly to hold off wolves. Furthermore, it works pretty much all the time.
In "Nora Prentis" Sheridan's perfectly cast as a nightclub singer who walks into an affair with a married man. Kent Smith is fine as her suitor. Vincent Sherman's the competent director, and James Wong Howe's the fine photographer.
We're treated to Ann's beautiful contralto voice (in a lovely ballad, "Who Cares What People Say") and to the rest of Warner Bros. stock company, including Robert Alda.
"Nora Prentis' " characters work because they're endowed with both strong and weak qualities. No one's clearly victim or villain here, just quite ordinary people who get trapped in tragic circumstances.
