The film opens in a San Francisco saloon in 1906. Jenny Sandoval wants to marry Dan, the piano player in the bar, but her father is against it. Then comes the earthquake
Good special effects of the time, and probably lots of newsreel footage. Dad dies, but so does Dan. Jenny is pregnant with his baby. To support her growing son Dan Jr. Jenny becomes a madam. Her character starts to change as she becomes more and more sharp, hard and world weary.
Steve Dutton, a lawyer, fatally shoots a gambler and Jenny helps hide the evidence. Eventually Jenny herself is accused. She allows her son to be taken in by a wealthy family to avoid his being taken away by the child welfare authorities. When she comes to collect him again and he's traumatized, she allows him to stay, at great pains to herself.
Dan Jr. grows up to be a prosecuting attorney and tries none other than his own mother, who is now in the bootlegging racket and who has killed Steve Dutton to prevent him from telling Dan who she is . Dan has no idea Jenny is his mother. Even when she is sentenced to death and awaits the noose, Jenny will not tell Dan the truth, out of her own sacrifice and love for her son. It's a kind of inverted Madame X- instead of her son being her defense attorney, her son is the prosecutor who sends her to the gallows.
Ruth Chatterton is terrific in this film! Very believable in her change from a good hearted 'innocent' in the beginning of the film to a woman hardened by life. Her final scene in the jail, she stripped of makeup and looking devastated, is raw and powerful.
My problem with the film is the "self-sacrifice" thing. She chooses death over "shaming" her son? I don't find that kind of choice noble and touching, I find it twisted and frustrating. How can it be that somebody's "name" is more important than another person's life? In Calvinist America at the time, you were your roots, and Dan would not have been accepted in society if they knew if he was a Barbary Coast love child. But I dunno - some values never change. Like choosing to stay alive. So she 'd tell her son who he really is. If he's the decent and fine man we're led to believe he is, he'd be strong enough to withstand society's criticism ... of the fact that he exited the wrong birth canal??? .
In spite of that I've always enjoyed the precodes - lusty men, bawdy women, prostitution, bootlegging, gambling, etc.
Steve Dutton, a lawyer, fatally shoots a gambler and Jenny helps hide the evidence. Eventually Jenny herself is accused. She allows her son to be taken in by a wealthy family to avoid his being taken away by the child welfare authorities. When she comes to collect him again and he's traumatized, she allows him to stay, at great pains to herself.
Dan Jr. grows up to be a prosecuting attorney and tries none other than his own mother, who is now in the bootlegging racket and who has killed Steve Dutton to prevent him from telling Dan who she is . Dan has no idea Jenny is his mother. Even when she is sentenced to death and awaits the noose, Jenny will not tell Dan the truth, out of her own sacrifice and love for her son. It's a kind of inverted Madame X- instead of her son being her defense attorney, her son is the prosecutor who sends her to the gallows.
Ruth Chatterton is terrific in this film! Very believable in her change from a good hearted 'innocent' in the beginning of the film to a woman hardened by life. Her final scene in the jail, she stripped of makeup and looking devastated, is raw and powerful.
My problem with the film is the "self-sacrifice" thing. She chooses death over "shaming" her son? I don't find that kind of choice noble and touching, I find it twisted and frustrating. How can it be that somebody's "name" is more important than another person's life? In Calvinist America at the time, you were your roots, and Dan would not have been accepted in society if they knew if he was a Barbary Coast love child. But I dunno - some values never change. Like choosing to stay alive. So she 'd tell her son who he really is. If he's the decent and fine man we're led to believe he is, he'd be strong enough to withstand society's criticism ... of the fact that he exited the wrong birth canal??? .
In spite of that I've always enjoyed the precodes - lusty men, bawdy women, prostitution, bootlegging, gambling, etc.