Very disappointed :(

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Best movie ever!

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

Here's the way I see things..... Norma Shearer's character Jan falls in love with a gangster played by you know who even though she's going out with a nice guy.The gangster is something exciting while the nice guy is quickly forgotten.What girl wouldn't want to be in constant danger of being shot at instead of horseback rides on the beach? Daddy, who's a lawyer & alcoholic, was OK with the gangster (Hey he's bringing in business, right?) until he found out the gangster is going out with his daughter.Now there's a problem & this causes a rift in the once tight bond between father & daughter, her family as well.Eventually the daughter realizes her & the gangster's relationship is going nowhere & he realizes that she's never going to publicly acknowledge their relationship (She always sneaking in the backdoor to see him) She sees what a mistake shes made & that she was actually better off with the nice guy.The gangster let's her know he's never, NEVER going anywhere & in steps the nice guy to save her from the gangster.BOOM.Now they go & find her father who was doing well but slipped & fell off the wagon a little ways back & hopped a train to ??? to bring him back to try & help the nice guy beat the case.THE END.I wasn't into this movie as much I hoped or thought I would be.It was just something to sit back & watch.I think I might have dozed off once or twice & had to rewind it back.Go ahead & give A Free Soul a shot.You'll probably enjoy it more than I did

" . . . you must acquit," amoral drunken defense lawyer Stephen Ashe says to spring "white slaver" boss pimp Ace Wilfong from a capital murder charge. Ace may be running an illegal casino in addition to his bordello, but it's his speakeasy that makes him Stephen's new bosom buddy. To get on Ace's "good" (all-the-complimentary-booze-you-can-hold) side post-acquittal, Stephen sets Ace up with his only child, Jan, during the Ashe clan's 80th birthday party for their Blueblood family matriarch. When this leads to months of hot, steamy, unwed sex, Stephen gets jealous. He's had his own (possibly unconsummated) life-long love affair with his daughter, Jan. They'd been inseparable in the Pre-Ace Days, calling each other "Darling" and "Dear." Now Jan has disappeared down Ace's rabbit hole. So Stephen agrees to give up booze if Jan gives up Ace, but Darling Dad falls off the wagon three months later and disappears. Granny croaks, Aunt Helen locks Jan out of the Family Manor, with Ace getting pushy when Jan crawls back to him as her only remaining port in the storm. Lionel Barrymore wins an Oscar for getting Ashley Wilkes off after he guns down Rhett Butler with his dying breath. Jan is so confused that she hops a train to New York.

Very entertaining pre-code flick from 1931 has lovely Shearer as the "free soul" flapper daughter of an alcoholic lawyer, played by Barrymore. They have a very close, but unusual father-daughter relationship, where she ignores his boozing and he ignores her wild lifestyle...until she falls for Gable, who plays a gangster being defended by her father, for whom she shuns the love of the "the nice guy" played by Howard. Gable really chews up playing the poker-faced bad guy and Barrymore is completely over-the-top, especially in the final courtroom showdown. Lucy Beaumont also turns up as (what else) the grandmother and its always nice to see her. A captivating oldie with some racy scenes and situations for the time.

Yeah, yeah, it's Gable and Howard 8 years before Gone With the Wind, and even then the former makes the latter look like a eunuch. A number of posters seem flummoxed by this little coincidence and by the early-talkie theatricality of this movie. But for its time it really moves and breathes, particularly in the impressive scenes of Norma Shearer and Lionel Barrymore camping in the Sierras, trying and failing to leave their addictions behind and repair their broken relationship.Technically, this movie may be primitive, but in terms of content and meaning you couldn't get it made today: it's the story of a woman who uses a thug only for her own sexual pleasure, and the baffled and violent way the men in her life react. All three of them are outwardly brilliant and successful -- the lawyer, the gangster, and the rich polo player -- but have their vanity and weakness exposed when confronted with a powerful woman making her own choices. Some of the quieter moments of this movie are pretty devastating.p.s. strange how the myth that Gable "slaps" Shearer persists... are people really watching this movie? He shoves her back onto a couch twice, and that's it. The real violence is what she does to him by treating him as a boy toy.