Frisco Jenny

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Movie
Original title Frisco Jenny
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1933
length 71 minutes
Rod
Director William A. Wellman
script Wilson Mizner , Robert Lord
production Warner Brothers
camera Sid Hickox
occupation

Frisco Jenny is a 1933 American film starring Ruth Chatterton and directed by William A. Wellman .

action

Jenny Sandoval works as a waitress in her father's beer bar. She has an affair with the pianist Dan McAllister and becomes pregnant by him. Jenny tells her father about the planned wedding when he beats her angrily. At that moment the great earthquake of 1906 broke out in San Francisco. Her father and Dan perish in the quake. Jenny survives and is forced to prostitute herself and her young son Dan. With the help of the corrupt attorney Steve Dutton, Jenny opens a brothel that soon becomes one of the city's top-selling brothels. She lives in wealth, but some time later she is embroiled in a scandal that forces her to move her child to a wealthy family, the Reynolds. Years go by and Jenny is successfully involved in alcohol smuggling. Her son, who believes he is a real Reynolds, is now the District Attorney, and his first act is to uproot Jenny and Steve's business and prosecute them. Steve, who is afraid for his future, tries to blackmail Dan with the truth about his birth mother. But Jenny, whose feelings for her child have never let up, shoots Steve before he can reveal anything. She is sentenced to death and even the last attempt by Dan, who is inexplicably drawn to Jenny, to clear up the real motives, fails. Jenny goes to the execution with her head held high, convinced that she has done the morally right thing.

background

Ruth Chatterton was one of the top female stars at the time and carried the honorary title "First Lady of the Screen". After a long career on Broadway, she made her film debut in 1928 and quickly became popular. Her strength lay in the portrayal of self-confident women who free themselves from any predicament, no matter how uncomfortable, and who stand up for their convictions. Chatterton's last commercial hits, Sarah and Son and The Right to Love , were a long time ago and their careers have since suffered from a string of shallow scripts and poor box office earnings. In mid-1931, Chatterton decided to accept the offer from Warner Brothers and, together with her colleagues Kay Francis and William Powell, switched to significantly higher fees. The collaboration with Warners, however, was not as ideal as both sides had imagined. Chatterton was increasingly dissatisfied with the roles offered, most of which showed her as a calculating woman from the lower class, and more and more often she refused to accept the scripts offered. Most of the parts went to Kay Francis, according to The House on 56th Street , Dr. Monica and Mandalay .

Frisco Jenny's screenplay adopted elements that had been part of the repertoire of women's films of the time since Madame X , The Sin of Madelon Claudet and The Secret of Madame Blanche : It was about the tragic fate of single mothers who do everything, including prostitution and murder to provide their children with a better life, only to end up lonely and miserable.

At the beginning of the 1930s, director William A. Wellman was under contract with Warner Brothers , where he mostly made films with a socially critical background. His work in Safe in Hell and the films with Barbara Stanwyck such as Night Nurse and So Big showed the desperation and material hardship that the Great Depression had triggered, using the example of the dramatic fate of women. He had a reputation for being a spirited contemporary who often fought with his male stars. He expected absolute obedience from the actors, which immediately led to massive tension with Ruth Chatterton, the studio's biggest female star at the time. After many arguments, the two finally got together and Chatterton has since counted Frisco Jenny among her favorite films. Wellman took on a small role as a reporter in the film.

The character of Frisco Jenny is typical of Wellman's heroes, despite all the melodrama of the plot: people who demonstrate strength of character in extreme situations and remain true to themselves and their beliefs. Jenny, despite her shady background, chooses death before betraying her ideals, thus proving an integrity that is not necessarily to be assumed.

Web links

Sources and further literature on pre-code films