While top billed and the screenwriter, Errol Flynn is secondary to leading lady Micheline Presle who plays a servant girl desperate to live the high life on St. Charles Street in New Orleans. To do so (and to get revenge on her nasty employer), she manipulates her way into the affections (or lusts) of the amoral Vincent Price who will one day inherit the estate of aging uncle Victor Francen. Presle's schemes result in two murders, one she committed herself, and the other she witnessed. Price is forced to marry her and frames old foe Flynn (whom Presle really loves), and this leads to riots in the city of sin by the sea.
While Presle completely overacts and Flynn basically plays himself, this lets Price walk away with the film. Agnes Moorhead, as Presle's aunt, is commanding and unintentionally funny, but she really doesn't get a lot of screen time or memorable lines. Her dark makeup is embarrassing as well. This is a mixed bag of melodrama filled with vengeance, violence and unsympathetic characters. Still, justice seems served and a moral lesson is taught. Presle ain't no Vivien Leigh unfortunately which is perhaps why she is completely forgotten, and her scheming character of Leah is far from memorable.
While Presle completely overacts and Flynn basically plays himself, this lets Price walk away with the film. Agnes Moorhead, as Presle's aunt, is commanding and unintentionally funny, but she really doesn't get a lot of screen time or memorable lines. Her dark makeup is embarrassing as well. This is a mixed bag of melodrama filled with vengeance, violence and unsympathetic characters. Still, justice seems served and a moral lesson is taught. Presle ain't no Vivien Leigh unfortunately which is perhaps why she is completely forgotten, and her scheming character of Leah is far from memorable.