Wild Company

H. B. Warner is a well-connected and successful merchant. He indulges his son, Frank Albertson, with plenty of money and a loose grip; as he tells wife Claire McDowell, he knows what it's like to be young. As a result, he has no idea of the situation Albertson is in: smitten with night-club singer Sharon Lynn, who is the mistress of Kenneth Thomson. Thomson plans to use Albertson as a cover for the robbery and murder of night-club owner Bela Lugosi, confident that by framing matters right, Albertson will go down with them, and Waner will never permit that.

There's a lot lurking in the subtext of this story, with its intermingling of flaming youth and organized crime. Leo McCarey, in his first movie for Fox, makes a stab at it, with a peroration by George Fawcett to define and condemn the lapses of modern society. The subject however is not McCarey's meat, and despite some fine performances, particularly by Warner, the movie lacks density to give it much gravity. The movie feels as if it could have been cut by five or ten minutes without losing anything. As a result, it's a heartfelt if undistinguished drama.