Because of a legal technicality between Universal Studios and MGM, this bitter, wonderful and lovely 1931 film, from director James Whale, was not available to the public for more than 70 years, and it remains a rarely-scene movie.
It features an impassioned performance by Mae Clarke, who should be celebrated for this film, but is most often remembered for getting hit in the face with a grapefruit by James Cagney in “The Public Enemy” (1931). Here she plays a young American showgirl who is stuck in London with the advent of World War I. Unable to get work, she drifts into prostitution. During an air raid she meets a nice Canadian soldier (Douglass Montgomery), who has no idea that she has been walking the streets. The question is — will her self-loathing spoil her chance at happiness?
This film was later remade in 1940, but because it was produced under the censorious Production Code, the heroine, played by Vivien Leigh, was no longer a prostitute but a ballerina! It made no sense. The original 1931 film is much more frank and uncompromising, and once you see Mae Clarke in this, you will never forget her.