The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

This pre-code drama is probably going to be remembered as Helen Twelvetree's signature role. The film takes her from young innocent bride on her wedding night to an aging party girl in court who has been on trial for killing a man who disrespected her daughter. The film is told in "chapters"; The first chapter has Millie as the nervous virgin, and a candle is inserted three times to indicate the passing time. As three years go by, she finds out that she has been a total fool about her philandering husband, and eight years later, is heavily involved in the party scene. More years go by, and now her 17 year old daughter is about to be exploited just as she was. No mother wants their child to go through the same mistakes she went through, and typical in this kind of film, she happens to be carrying a gun.Shady men and brassy women surround Millie wherever she goes. Her two pals are Lilyan Tashman and Joan Blondell, experts in these types of parts, and her innocent daughter is the young Anita Louise. But everybody pales in comparison to Twelvetrees' total emersement in the role, eating the scenery up like a banquet as she goes from one part of her life to another. By the time she's reached her courtroom finale, she's almost become like Helen Hayes' "Madelon Claudet", a ragged shell of what she once used to be.Watching the first act of this film reminded me of a 1920's play, "Machinal", based upon a real life murder case where the woman went to the gas chamber in the final scene. While this doesn't go down that path, you do get the sense that had Millie remained with her faithless husband, he would have been the one who got the bullet, and Millie would end up in prison singing the "Cell Block Tango" of how "He Had It Comin'".

This creaky antique reworking of Madame X is of interest mainly for its pre-code ingredients, blatant lesbianism, unpunished sex outside marriage etc., than any real value as a film. A lot of the film techniques are reminiscent of silents showing the growing pains of films continued into the early thirties. Part of the problem with the film is that all the men talk about how the heroine gets under a man's skin and they can't get over her but Helen Twelvetrees exudes none of the magnetism that makes that believable. The supporting players add more to the picture than the leads with Lilyan Tashman having the most fun as a party girl with Joan Blondell and Frank McHugh both starting out but already stealing scenes with their patented personas firmly in place. Except for the three of them the acting is extremely florid, especially towards the end. An almost unrecognizable Anita Louise, still beautiful but so young, is cast as Millie's daughter.

Soap Opera following the exploits of Millie Blake (Helen Twelvetrees) and her "love parade" of heels. This film spans nearly twenty years as we watch our Millie go from jittery young girl scared to face her honeymoon bed (as her new hubby presses "Are you sleepy yet?"), to rich, bored, and lonesome wife and mother, to divorcée working the counter of a cigar stand fending off "offers" from men, to mother who will stop at nothing to help save her teenage daughter's virtue. Millie soon realizes that "all men are tramps" - and it's true, at least in her world - all the men in this film are just complete womanizing cads, and one man goes even further than that when he attempts to pursue a very innocent sixteen year old girl (who calls him "Uncle"), rubbing her ankles, ladling her with "cider", and getting her to put on one of his assortment of "Mandarin Coats".This pre-code film has it all - from a montage of a day at Coney Island to cat fights to divorce to bootleg cocktail parties to two blondes in negligees sharing a double bed all the way to the schemes of a lecher. It is really fun to watch the scenes with Millie's two blonde gal pals, childhood friend Angie and her bed friend Helen, a feisty, tough, wisecracking sort of gal - these two women run through men, booze, and outlandish fur, satin, and chiffon gowns like water. There is a nice musical number in one nightclub scene, a rendition of "Millie, the Red Head". This film actually becomes quite serious in later scenes, bringing it to a satisfying climax. Very good.

Very typical of its time, "Millie" stars Helen Twelvetrees as the title character, a woman who starts off as a respectable young mother married into a rich family. Soon enough, she divorces, gives up her child and descends into a shameful streetwalker's life. Before the final frame, she tries to get her daughter and her dignity back. The most notable thing about it now is the presence of a young Joan Blondell as one of Millie's slutty friends. Helen Twelvetrees herself is fascinating to watch - sort of a cross between Clara Bow and Glenda Farrell, very vivacious and totally unlike the stuffy, victorian-era images that the her name conjures up (the big joke at the time was that she was Rin Tin Tin's favorite actress!).