When this film begins, Happy Manning (Sam Hardy) comes home to his beloved wife, Mexicali Rose (Barbara Stanwyck) only to discover she's a no-good tramp who's cheating on him. Soon they are divorced and Happy soon travels to see his ward, Bob, at college--where Bob is a star football player. Later, Bob gets married and brings home his new bride. Guess who the lucky girl is....Mexicali Rose! And it appears as if she is either doing this to get back at Happy or get her hands on Bob's gold mine...or both! After all, Rose is a bad girl...a VERY bad girl!
Of course the notion of Bob marrying the exact same girl is ludicrous. However, it needs to be put into some context. During this Pre-Code era, there were a lot of films that portrayed women as gold-digging tramps and this film fits in nicely with such films as "Red-Headed Woman" and "Baby Face". So audiences of the day would have found the idea of an incredibly manipulative and evil woman very acceptable...though the exact circumstances must have even made folks laugh a bit back in 1929. Plus, it's really inexplicable that Happy wouldn't immediately tell Bob about Rose. What's also a BIG surprise is how Happy takes care of all this and how the movie ends. It certainly is NOT something you would expect!!!
Overall, I'd say that the film has a cheap look about it and is basically a B-movie. The ending especially seems just tacked on and strange. It's not a bad film but it certainly is obvious that Stanwyck isn't yet a big star and she's doing her time in Columbia Pictures' B unit.
By the way, if you pay close attention to the Mexican folks in this film you'll realize that many of them are just folks painted dark! It's pretty obvious and very, very sad. After all, it wasn't like Los Angeles had any shortage of Chicanos who could have appeared in the movie...yet they dumped paint on folks instead. This isn't much different from the silent film days where D.W. Griffith routinely painted white guys black...and then often portrayed these 'black' men as savages!! And, having one of these Mexicans billed as 'Loco the halfwit' is not exactly sensitive!!
