A dancehall girl meets a sailor and they fall in love, but the club’s owner doesn’t want the girl to leave.
Acting
Ann Dvorak's weary defiance steals every scene.
Direction
Salkow squeezes poetry from poverty-row sets.
Costume
Sequins and exhaustion — the uniform of survival.
Director
Sidney Salkow
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Made as Columbia Pictures' B-unit was transitioning from Depression grit to wartime uplift — this is one of the last gasps of unvarnished pre-Code sensibility.
Ann Dvorak was a former chorus girl herself; she reportedly rewrote some of her own dialogue to make Jo's exhaustion feel lived-in.
US
