Who payed the critics

Boring

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Producer: Frank Borzage. Copyright 18 July 1931 by Fox Film Corp. New York opening at the Roxy, 14 August 1931. 8,046 feet. 89 minutes.SYNOPSIS: A year in the lives of two young married people in New York's tenements. The movie has considerably changed both the plot and the title character of the stage play. "Bad Girl" is now a totally incorrect title. There is no "bad girl" in the picture.NOTES: Feature film debut of Broadway stage star, James Dunn. (He had previously appeared in five movie shorts).The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences selected Frank Borzage for Best Directing (defeating King Vidor's The Champ, and Josef von Sternberg's Shanghai Express), and Edwin Burke for Adapted Screenplay (defeating Sidney Howard's Arrowsmith, and Percy Heath and Samuel Hoffenstein's Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde).Bad Girl was also nominated for Best Picture (defeated by Grand Hotel), and was placed 4th in The Film Daily poll of U.S. film critics (after Cimarron, Street Scene and Skippy). It was selected by The New York Times as one of the Ten Best Pictures of 1931. The stage play opened on Broadway at the Hudson on 2 October 1930 and ran a very moderately successful 85 performances. Sylvia Sidney played the title role, while Paul Kelly did the husband. Marion Gering directed.COMMENT: Frank Borzage was not only Hollywood's king of romance, but a superlative craftsman who could play on the strings of an audience's emotions like a master violinist. His own temperament echoed the image of a confirmed sentimentalist. A quiet man, Borzage (pronounced "Bore-zaig/ie", the "zaig" rhymes with "plague") never raised his voice on the set and never drew attention to himself. Untutored visitors always assumed he was a script clerk or continuity assistant.Yet any critic who writes a book on Romance in the Cinema will always place Borzage's name at the top of the list. He really believed in what he was doing. In fact, he persisted in his adoration for Romance even when it was out of fashion. In this instance, of course, the movie struck a timely chord with Depression audiences.Oddly, In the free-and-easy, pre-censorship Hollywood world of the early pre-code 1930s, Borzage and his very clever scriptwriters Edwin Burke and Rudolf Sieber cleaned up Delmar's play, changing characters and plot to an enormous extent, even though there was absolutely no pressure on them to do so. They succeeded in making Bad Girl far more romantic, if almost equally realistic. In fact, it's not the romance that seems artificial, but the occasional comic relief. In the stage play, the heroine, a little Bronx stenographer (Sylvia Sidney), is an unwed mother who is forced to marry a petty racketeer (Paul Kelly), whom she tries to reform.The film "version" bears only one vague relationship to the stage play, namely the fact that two young people get married and settle down in a New York apartment. Otherwise, it is completely different in every respect. Mordaunt Hall in his review in The New York Times even goes so far as to state that the "only adverse criticism" he could make of Bad Girl was "its strangely unsuitable title." He was being sarcastic, of course. He knew perfectly well how the title came about. He continues: "However, that is of small importance, for many a poor picture has boasted a good title."This must-see movie, is now available on a 10/10 Fox DVD set. In fact, I'd like to give this movie 10/10 also, but that deceptive title might annoy some people.

Linked to many movies on IMDb are posters or pictures from the movie from which it came. However, in the case of "Bad Girl" you wonder if the artist ever saw the film or had any idea what the plot was! First, the figures on the poster look nothing like the actors (in particular, the guy is not anything like the 'everyman' James Dunn). Second, the poster makes the film look like a sex movie or at least one with a LOT of sexuality! But instead, it's just a nice Depression-era film about a nice couple who are trying to make a lives for themselves. And what it has to do with a bad girl is also anyone's guess!! Sally Eilers is a clothing model who is sick and tired of men always making passes at her or harassing her. So, when she meets Dunn and he is relatively indifferent to her, she is intrigued! Why won't he act like a boorish cad as well?! Eventually, the two begin dating and fall quickly in love. Surprisingly, the supposedly cynical Dunn asks her to marry him and seems happy with exactly the sort of life he said he didn't want. Then, when she becomes pregnant, she is worried, as Dunn wanted to start his own business and didn't want kids--but once again, what Dunn SAID he wanted and how he reacted are quite different and he likes the idea of kids and doesn't mind deferring his dream. Seeing the occasionally tough-acting Dunn show greater depth to his character was pretty enjoyable. There's more to the film, but it's probably best you see it for yourself.While the movie obviously was well-respected back in 1931 (as the director received an Oscar for his direction and it was nominated for Best Picture), it doesn't play quite as well today. This isn't to say it's a bad film--it just seems a little old fashioned and dated...but still very sweet. But despite its age, it is worth seeing and is a decent film--a good showcase for Dunn and a nice little romance.

Bad Girl is included in the new Murnau/Borzage and Fox collection,and kudos to them for making it available! Though an excellent little slice of life film from the Depression Era, I definitely wouldn't say that it compares with Borzage's timeless silent romances, though Borzage's recurrent theme of love conquering all is here to.The lead actors,Sally Eilers, and James Dunn, both do fine jobs, especially Dunn, who paints a very realistic portrait of a "regular Joe", decent kind of a guy. His performance rings true, and he later made a comeback, winning the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.(1945) This is the story of a young couple's struggle to make it through marriage, finances, and becoming parents. The background story of what was considered "making it" in a poor economy is especially pertinent today. Dunn's character, Eddie Collins, thought it was opening his own radio shop, providing his wife with an elaborately furnished apartment, and getting her the best doctor for her delivery. Not so different from what young couples are facing today! The film is sometimes a bit too wordy, but the slang of the time is a hoot! As one of Borzage's smaller films, it's worth a watch.

An interesting little Borzage love story set during the Depression, detailing the struggles of young couple (Sally Eilers & James Dunn) with their hopes and dreams. Curiously Borzage won his second Oscar as Best Director for this oddly heady little movie and that's perhaps the only reason to watch it. It works as a timepiece of its era. But I definitely wouldn't call "Bad Girl" one of Borzage's best romances (in many ways it strikes me as turgid and unaffecting in several moments, and I didn't like the ending), but it is definitely worth catching if you are fan or a student of the director's sublime and unheralded oeuvre.