Lilly Turner (1933)

Director
William A. Wellman

Main cast
Ruth Chatterton; George Brent; Frank McHugh; Guy Kibbee; Robert Barrat

Genres
Drama

Description
Melodrama about a woman who marries a bigamist, then a drunk, and falls in love with another man, all while working at a carnival. Based on the 1932 play of the same name by Phillip Dunning and George Abbott. Lilly Turner is a very precode character in a very precode film. She starts out with all the best intentions and does nothing wrong, only to find herself in a highly unfortunate situation that society of the time couldn't approve of: an unmarried mother to be. She then gets out of it through the kindness of another, becoming half of an open marriage, very progressive for the times. Lilly Turner would have needed to be completely rewritten to have been made during the code years.


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