Two totally opposite female neighbors take a night out on the town in Manhattan and find adventure in the evening air, all of a sudden ending up in Coney Island. For fluttery Zasu Pitts, it will be an evening she doesn't forget, falling into a sewer. Her gal-pal (Boots Mallory) asks if she fell into a manhole to which Pitts self-effacingly replies, "I never fall into anything involving a man". But for Mallory, it is a magical night, falling in love with James Dunn and ending up in a predicament that was very scandalous in 1933 and a string of misunderstandings which leads to a massive fire in a thrilling conclusion.
Of course, Pitts steals every moment in which she is on screen, playing an overly chatty klutz who keeps saying the wrong thing which disillusions every man she encounters. In a sense, she's a pitiful character you might find yourself ashamed for laughing at. Minna Gombell adds fine support as another one of their neighbors, an obvious floozy, while Will Stanton is the neighborhood drunk who can barely stand and encounters the residents of this apartment building every time they make an exit or entrance.
The real star of the film is the profound, sometimes sinister way director/writer Erich Von Stroheim tells the story, especially a sudden reference to Van Goh's "The Last Supper" painting which zooms in on a close-up of Jesus in a rather macbre way. This is utilizes to reference the heroine's humiliating predicament of being an unwed mother and the doctor's understanding compassion which was usually provided as judgmental and finger-wagging in similar films of this type.
Of course, Pitts steals every moment in which she is on screen, playing an overly chatty klutz who keeps saying the wrong thing which disillusions every man she encounters. In a sense, she's a pitiful character you might find yourself ashamed for laughing at. Minna Gombell adds fine support as another one of their neighbors, an obvious floozy, while Will Stanton is the neighborhood drunk who can barely stand and encounters the residents of this apartment building every time they make an exit or entrance.
The real star of the film is the profound, sometimes sinister way director/writer Erich Von Stroheim tells the story, especially a sudden reference to Van Goh's "The Last Supper" painting which zooms in on a close-up of Jesus in a rather macbre way. This is utilizes to reference the heroine's humiliating predicament of being an unwed mother and the doctor's understanding compassion which was usually provided as judgmental and finger-wagging in similar films of this type.