Irene Vanbrugh runs a gambling house in Paris. However, her fancy man, Henry Victor, has been collecting her debts and keeping them for himself. S she decides that it's time to pack it in and move to London, where things are better managed.... except that Victor tags along. When she realizes that her grandchild, Aileen Marson, has lost a lot of money at her tables, she reveals herself to the girl and lets her have money to enjoy herself. Victor sees an opportunity for himself, and the young girl sees her forthcoming marriage to Army officer Sebastian Shaw threatened.
It's enough to make one think of Henry James and his long-winded meditations on the suffocating details of upper-class life, except that none of the people we see on screen are shocked by this raging storm of outraged propriety. It's well acted, if rather pointless, and its year of production meant it never played in an American movie theater, where Joe Breen' might have had a stroke, even though no one ever does or says anything wrong, no one is hurt, and no one is punished for the cardinal sin of wearing a straw hat after September 15.
It's enough to make one think of Henry James and his long-winded meditations on the suffocating details of upper-class life, except that none of the people we see on screen are shocked by this raging storm of outraged propriety. It's well acted, if rather pointless, and its year of production meant it never played in an American movie theater, where Joe Breen' might have had a stroke, even though no one ever does or says anything wrong, no one is hurt, and no one is punished for the cardinal sin of wearing a straw hat after September 15.