Mae Clarke will always be remembered as the girl whose face James Cagney showed a grapefruit into in the same year's THE PUBLIC ENEMY. She will not be remembered for this weird little story about a a hood's girl who finds that her past will always be with her.
In some ways, this looks a bit antique for 1931, almost as if you are looking at 1928's famously inert LIGHTS OF NEW YORK. But don't be fooled. Although Ted Tetzlaff's photography is still in the big scenes, there's lots of movement, indicating distraction to the moviegoers in the set-ups to them. But in competition with the fast-paced stuff that it seems that everyone was doing at Warner's, this attempt to bring the woman's viewpoint into the genre as a tearjerker doesn't work, nor is Mae Clarke the actress to carry the effort.