Lovesusti The Worst Film Ever

Actuakers One of my all time favorites.

Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

Rosie Searle It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Alex da Silva Society lady Kay Francis (Mrs Seymour) runs a canteen for servicemen during WW2 as well as a beauty parlour. Both these businesses are a front for her real money-maker which is marrying off women to servicemen to then collect their allocated pay as a war wife and also to cash in on the insurance if the servicemen die. Women are encouraged to marry several men at a time. One victim of this scam is the friend of Colonel Paul Kelly (Pete Martin) so Kelly agrees to go undercover to smash this organized criminal gang.This film is OK with a good performance by Kay at the centre of things and her sidekick Otto Kruger (Whitey) also does well as the chief heavy. The syndicate leader from Texas Matty Fain (Moranto) also plays his gangster role well. However, the film slips into sentimentality with Kay's teenage daughter Teala Loring (Connie) and the film slows in these sections and gets a bit boring. Another downfall is casting Paul Kelly as the man to crack the case. He can't act.The sound quality isn't too good but you can live with it – there's a background hissing. Allotment wives has nothing to do with gardening as the title suggests – it could have been a film about women meeting at their allotments and engaging in gossip. I'm grateful that it's not about that and I feel I've learnt something about the times depicted. Never crossed my mind that this sort of thing went on.

LeonLouisRicci Tough, Hard-Boiled "Social" Crime Drama from Low-Rent Monogram Pictures. This is one of Their Betters. Starring on the Skids, but not quite on Skid-Row, Kay Francis and the Always Reliable Paul Kelly with some, had been a Star, but not quite a Has-Been Support, from Otto Kruger as what else, a Snakey, but in the End more than just a Bad Guy.It has its Moments of Violence, Melodrama, and Social Commentary and is a Rather Engaging piece of Noirish Business. That of Unscrupulous Women Marrying Military Types by the Handful for not Love but Money. The Head of this 'Syndicate" is a Woman Herself (Miss Francis) who has a Daughter that Figures in quite Heavily in this Heavy Handedness.There are some Memorable Scenes in Bedrooms, Staircases, and Prison Cells that would seem to Fit Easily into Film-Noir, but its Flat and Less than Creative Style, mostly Overlit and Pedestrian, that keeps this one Barely Eligible, but does manage in the End to have Enough of what it Takes to be a Contender.

bkoganbing Allotment Wives has Kay Francis toiling for Monogram Pictures and running a special kind of clip joint racket tailored to servicemen. The hostesses are to seduce and marry lonely GIs and get those allotment checks should the servicemen be killed. Quite a cute little racket and the Army has sent Paul Kelly in to investigate and he's going under the guise of a newspaper reporter covering a story about how we're seeing the comforts of our men in uniform.Her partner in crime is Otto Kruger and Kay has unfortunately one bitter enemy from when she was serving time in Gertrude Michael. Kay also has an Achilles heel and it's her daughter Teala Loring. Kay's sent her to an exclusive college and she's kept her business a secret from Loring. But the daughter has proved to be a wild child and I don't think I need go further.For a Monogram film it's not bad and Francis, Kelly, and Kruger do deliver good performances. And certainly the topic was a timely one. Many women got widow's windfalls as a result of a hurried romance during wartime. It's just that Kay is putting it on an organized basis.Still though the production values are typical Monogram, practically non-existent. The film is quite a come down from when Kay Francis was a big name at Paramount and later Warner Brothers.

poggiolim I love movies made in the 1940's esp. Noir type movies. This particular movie, Allotment Wives, was being shown years ago at an extremely limited engagement at the Roxie Theatre in San Francisco, California. I had to miss going to see the show, and I've regretted it ever since. I'd love to see this film. I love movies like The Best Years of Our Lives, So Proudly We Hail, Stage Door Canteen, The Red House, Detour, Mildred Pierce, Air Force, Citizen Kane, White Heat, High Sierra, Dark Passage, 30 Seconds Over Tokyo, etc. I hate to think I would go to my grave without seeing Allotment Wives. Do they show it on late night TV? How can I see this? If you have any ideas, I would be grateful to you, fellow Noir aficionados.