Bad Girl (1931 film)

''Bad Girl'' is a 1931 American pre-Code drama film directed by Frank Borzage and starring Sally Eilers, James Dunn, and Minna Gombell. The screenplay was adapted by Edwin J. Burke from the 1928 novel by Viña Delmar and the 1930 play by Delmar and Brian Marlowe. The plot follows the courtship and marriage of two young, working-class people and the misunderstandings that result from their not having learned to trust and communicate with one another. The film propelled then-unknown actors Eilers and Dunn to stardom. It was nominated for three Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and won for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay.

Plot

Dorothy Haley and Edna Driggs are store models, first seen in bridal clothes at their job one afternoon. After work Dorothy fends off her boss, who wants to take her for a ride, by claiming to be married to a prizefighter. The girls then go to Coney Island. On the return steamboat trip, the women make a bet about attracting a certain man's attention, and Dorothy proceeds to annoy him by playing a ukulele. This man is Eddie Collins; after his initial grouchy reaction to the women, he slowly forms a connection with Dorothy and sees her home. Eddie works in a radio shop and dreams of having a shop on his own, for which he has been saving.

Eddie forgets to show up for a date and Dorothy angrily finds him in his boarding house, where they remain together until 4 a.m. Eddie walks her home but she is afraid to go up, fearing the reaction of her abusive elder brother who is her guardian. Eddie proposes marriage as a solution and Dorothy joyfully accepts. Her brother calls her a tramp and evicts her from her home. Dorothy suffers some anxiety the next day when Eddie seems to have disappeared; he then turns up, having made arrangements for a new place to live, and the two are happily married.

Ten weeks later, Dorothy confides to Edna that she is pregnant, but is reluctant to tell Eddie the news when she learns that he is ready to open his new shop, an expensive commitment. Instead she tells Eddie that she would like to return to work, to which he objects. Wrongly guessing that she really wants a larger place to live, Eddie cancels his plans for the shop in favor of a lavish new apartment and the purchase of new furnishings, increasing Dorothy's worries. By the time Eddie finally finds out he is to become a father, the two mutually misunderstand that the other is unhappy about the pregnancy, resulting in a strain on their marriage. The strain intensifies when Eddie stays out late at night to earn extra money as a boxer to pay for the services of Dr. Burgess, the best obstetrician in the city, all without telling Dorothy. Eddie is being pummeled in one of these prizefights while Dorothy leaves for the hospital; when he returns and Dorothy sees him bruised and bandaged, she assumes he was in a barroom brawl and turns her back on him. After their son is born, Dorothy plans to leave Eddie; however, before that can happen the misunderstanding is cleared up, and the couple returns home together to raise their child.

Themes

The Depression-era backdrop of poverty and deprivation tinges the characters' preoccupation with and fears about earning money and paying for their needs.

Cast

*Sally Eilers as Dorothy Collins
* James Dunn as Eddie Collins
* Minna Gombell as Edna Driggs

*Uncredited:
* Frank Austin as upstairs tenement neighbor
*Irving Bacon as expectant father
* Frank Darien as Lathrop
* Jesse De Vorska as expectant father
*Paul Fix as nervous expectant father
*Guy Edward Hearn as male nurse
*Aggie Herring