THE WOMAN RACKET (1930)

The police raid a speakeasy called the Blue Moon and round up most of the rich patrons as they try to escape through the back. As police officer Tom Hayes makes a last check, he sees a young woman in a sparkly outfit named Julia trying to climb up a tree. She pleads with him to let her go since she was just the entertainment, not a patron. Taken with her, Tom lets her go and also starts dating her. Before long, she agrees to stop working and they get married, but in a few months, she's complaining about living on a cop's salary and wants to go back to work. Tom won't allow it, partly because he knows the manager of the club, Chris Miller, is involved in shady dealings. Eventually Julia leaves Tom and gets her old job back. She lives at the club and has a casual affair with the slimy Chris before beginning to distance herself from him for his thuggish ways. She becomes buddies with a new pianist, Rags, and his girl singer, Buddy, and when Chris starts tempting the innocent Buddy with promises of a big job in Chicago with a Broadway bound show, Julia warns him to knock it off. Soon she admits to her friends that if Tom ever asked her to come back, she would. When a patron named Wardell breaks the club's gambling bank, Chris tells Julia to take Wardell to a nearby chop suey joint and get him drunk so Chris's men can roll him and get the cash back. Feeling pressured, she does, but the evening ends with Wardell beaten into unconsciousness. Tom, alone and unhappy but not actually divorced, has been promoted to sergeant and when he arrives at the scene, he finds a compact that he gave Julia as a gift. He hides it but goes to Chris to let him know that he is under suspicion. When Wardell dies, Chris finds things getting too hot, so he gets tickets for himself and Buddy to get away to Chicago. When Julia finds out, she threatens to talk, so Chris knocks her out and stuffs her in a Chicago-bound trunk. Will Tom arrive in time to set things right? And will Julia still be alive?

This pre-Code melodrama provides a rare chance to see the silent film star Blanche Sweet (Julia) in a talkie. Her career was already in decline and she retired from the screen in 1930 at the age of 34. She's fine here, coming off as strong and energetic, and still quite attractive, and there was nothing wrong with her voice. The Irish Tom Moore (Tom) was one of the three Moore brothers—Matt and Owen are the others—who were known for their character roles in the 1930s. Though he seems a bit rough and tumble to attract a sort like Julia, he does have a forceful screen presence and is sympathetic despite his dismissive treatment of Julia. John Miljan, who specialized in slick bad guys, is OK if a bit restrained as Chris; he could have turned up the slime quotient a bit. I liked Sally Starr and Bobby Agnew as Buddy and Rags. Oddly, the last shot of the movie isn't of our main romantic couple (yes, there’s a happy ending) but of Buddy and Rags reuniting. Sweet and Starr each get a musical number, with Starr dancing with more enthusiasm than talent. Agnew gave up acting a few years later and had a long career as an assistant director in movies and TV. Stylistically, the movie is a notch above many of the other early talkies of 1930. Static shots alternate with a moving camera, though occasionally a shot is held too long or a minor flub stays in. The opening raid is shot mostly from floor view, focusing on the shoes and legs of the fleeing patrons. The climax, with some gunplay, is shot in the dark so we hear but don't see the violence. One oddity which other viewers have noticed: though the club is raided in the opening, it never seems threatened by the law later, with Tom even visiting without the intent to raid. Pictured are Moore and Sweet. [TCM]