Alimony is a cheapie from the short lived Eagle-Lion Studios and it has some shoddy editing and a cop out ending. But the story is not a bad one and some interesting players give some nice performances.
The whole thing is narrated by John Beal who is now a successful composer telling Paul Guilfoyle, the father of Martha Vickers about his daughter who was just released from prison. It's not stuff a father wants to hear about his daughter.
Beal is married to Hillary Brooke and at one time all three were boarders at Marie Blake's rooming house. Brooke is the good girl and Vickers who was best known for being Lauren Bacall's sister in The Big Sleep is the bad one.
Vickers is the inspiration for a hit song that Beal wrote for his first big break. She latches on to him, but this is a girl who keeps her options open.
One of those options is an Alimony racket. She's the come on in staging phony situations for bottom feeding divorce attorney Douglass Dumbrille. It's what leads to her downfall.
Dumbrille really does this part with relish. He's the poster child for shyster attorneys. Clearly the best one in the film. There's also a nice performance by Leonid Kinskey who is Beal's agent.
This one considering its defects is not too bad. Maybe at Warner Brothers with Bette Davis and Olivia DeHavilland in the parts that Vickers and Brooke have this might have been a good film. Certainly a major studio might have corrected the defects present here.
The whole thing is narrated by John Beal who is now a successful composer telling Paul Guilfoyle, the father of Martha Vickers about his daughter who was just released from prison. It's not stuff a father wants to hear about his daughter.
Beal is married to Hillary Brooke and at one time all three were boarders at Marie Blake's rooming house. Brooke is the good girl and Vickers who was best known for being Lauren Bacall's sister in The Big Sleep is the bad one.
Vickers is the inspiration for a hit song that Beal wrote for his first big break. She latches on to him, but this is a girl who keeps her options open.
One of those options is an Alimony racket. She's the come on in staging phony situations for bottom feeding divorce attorney Douglass Dumbrille. It's what leads to her downfall.
Dumbrille really does this part with relish. He's the poster child for shyster attorneys. Clearly the best one in the film. There's also a nice performance by Leonid Kinskey who is Beal's agent.
This one considering its defects is not too bad. Maybe at Warner Brothers with Bette Davis and Olivia DeHavilland in the parts that Vickers and Brooke have this might have been a good film. Certainly a major studio might have corrected the defects present here.