Dir: Monta Bell | Norma Shearer Malcolm McGregor, George K Arthur | US Silent Drama 1925
Reviewed by Richard Chatten
A good example of the cinema of the 1920s habit of placing a tale of impeccable moral rectitude behind an apparently racy title.
Norma Shearer demonstrates her celebrated versatility by playing two seemingly very different young ladies – one a judge’s daughter, the other just discharged from a reform school – by the simple addition of adding a beauty spot and a spit curl to the latter.
The reform school girl meets a handsome hunk who informs here that he has invented a device “that will open any safe in the world”, to which she disarmingly replies “I know a gang of crooks that’ll buy it”; while Bad Norma’s moon-faced chum Chunky demonstrates that he is the film’s moral compass – although he shows his naivety when he expresses the hope that “I may be a millionaire some day” – by opining that “Bakers will steal it. Crooks level with you”.
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