Pluskylang Great Film overall

Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Bea Swanson This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Casey Duggan It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

Alex da Silva Kay (Barbara Stanwyck) and Dot (Marie Prevost) are a couple of slags who share an apartment. They are the gold-digging type of prostitute - not the decent type who do it for the love of their career. Anyway, Kay meets a wealthy painter Jerry (Ralph Graves) who asks her to be his model. She agrees and they fall in love. Jerry has another girlfriend Claire (Juliette Compton) who his parents approve of. However, while Jerry does not see eye-to-eye with his father (George Fawcett), his mother (Nance O'Neill) is more sympathetic to him and his wishes. But even she does not approve of a union between her son and a slut. She visits Kay to warn her off............The film is interesting and has a few good scenes, eg, the confrontation between Barbara Stanwyck and Nance O'Neill and the scenes with Marie Prevost. She provides some funny moments as does Jerry's playboy artist friend Bill (Lowell Sherman). However, there are also drawn out scenes of melodrama that can get quite dull and I didn't think much of Ralph Graves as a leading man.Overall, the film was watchable even though I fell asleep during a melodramatic bit, although this may have been as a result of a large pizza that I had just eaten. It's interesting as a slice of 1930 and the film is OK.

Neil Doyle Considering that movies only began to talk in 1928, this early sound film starring BARBARA STANWYCK as a girl of ill repute (she calls herself a party girl), and RALPH GRAVES as an artist who wants to use her as a model, is not bad at all. It's certainly one of the better jobs in sound recording for a film made in the early '30s. As usual with films of this period, there is almost no music on the soundtrack except for the moment when "The End" is flashed on the screen. In the TCM print I watched, the screen then fades to black while some "exit" music is played against a dark screen.Stanwyck is the prostitute with a heart of gold who finds a good man and doesn't want to let him go, even when his family objects to their union when he proposes marriage. She is convinced by the mother to give him up--but circumstances change after she makes a rash decision.Stanwyck is excellent at conveying the brassy qualities of the character, but then reveals the softer nature of the girl as she falls in love with the man who only wants to paint her portrait. The tenderness of the romance that develops is full of nuances that one wouldn't expect from a Frank Capra film. The sentimental ending is more in keeping with his usual style.RALPH GRAVES gives a quiet, assured performance as the man who finds that he does really love Stanwyck. LOWELL SHERMAN does his usual schtick as an inebriated friend who flounces around making wisecracks. MARIE PREVOST has some good moments as Stanwyck's roommate and NANCE O'NEIL does a good job as Grave's well-meaning mother.Stanwyck fans will appreciate her well modulated performance.

Michael Morrison Barbara Stanwyck looked sweet and innocent, even though her character is supposed to have been around.For someone making only her fourth movie, she was a treat to watch, and not just because of her looks. She gave a terrific performance.Others have criticized Ralph Graves, in his twelfth year of film acting, but I thought he was marvelously realistic, giving a wonderful under-acted performance.Jimmy Cagney said when he, and some others, came to California with their under-acting, they changed Hollywood. Graves might have been just ahead of his time.Lowell Sherman was surely the pluperfect movie cad. In this film, too, he gave a superb performance.Marie Prevost, though, stole the show ... well, she at least came in a close second to Stanwyck. Her brash, brassy character was funny, touching, adorable ... even if she wasn't someone a young man might want to bring home to mother.Again there was a corny, silly telling of the story via a newspaper headline that surely could have been better told some other way; but, over all, this movie is a good story, well told and well acted, and a great look at its time in history.By the way, a note to Yard Bird: Most likely the reason it was made in silent and sound versions was to be sure every theater could play it. At the time, not all theaters had yet converted to sound.It was the sound version that played in May of 2009 on Turner Classic Movies. I would guess it is now available for purchase.Added early on 7 October 2017: In fact, "Ladies of Leisure" is available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJ8HmUcuJfU

clark-9 Reviews of this film do not make clear that it apparently is available in both sound and silent versions. The version of this film borrowed from our local library was the silent version as apparently this film was Capra's 2nd talkie and last silent (per Moviediva web site). It had a very distracting soundtrack that did not match the moods on the screen at all. Still, if you are a Capra or Stanwyck fan, the silent version is better than none at all and worth the time. Hopefully, I will be able to see a sound version on Turner or AMC.