Plot:
- by Zoë
Shaw
Doris and Jimmie are in
love, but she refuses to marry him, and he chucks her. Jimmie becomes Claire
Kinkaid's chauffeur, and Claire falls in love with him. Doris becomes the
mistress of Eric, a very rich bloke, who doesn't love his wife. Doris and
Eric go gambling around the world, which is what Ridgeway and Lil are doing.
Lil kills herself. Doris and Jimmie meet again, argue, and then get back
together.
Review:
- by Donna Moore
Doris, a dress shop model longs to be rich and refuses to
marry her true love Jimmie, a garage mechanic. Jimmie breaks up with her, thinking she
doesn't care about love, only about money. He meets lonely rich girl Claire Kinkaid who
would rather be in love than have all the money in the world. She employs him as her
chauffeur and gradually falls in love with him. She asks him to marry her but Jimmie,
still in love with Doris, refuses.
Doris meets unhappily married man about town Eric Nelson.
Nelson falls in love with Doris and takes her out until all hours of the morning, causing
her father to throw her out. When Jimmie hears that she is apparently having an affair
with Nelson, he agrees to marry Claire.
Nelson and Doris live the high life, gambling, drinking and
spending money with Nelson's friend Ridgeway (Cary Grant) and Ridgeway's girlfriend Lil.
Lil's suicide causes Doris to realize that her life is shallow and empty and a chance
meeting with Jimmie, during which he tells her she's no good, makes her think hard about
the life she has chosen. She is further disillusioned and disgusted with herself when
Ridgeway comes to tell her that Nelson has patched things up with his wife but that he,
Ridgeway, is prepared to take care of Doris. She refuses his offer and goes to work in a
dressmakers.
The meeting with Doris has led Jimmie to realize that his
marriage to Claire is a sham and she, although still in love with him, lets him go. He
sets up in business selling cars and meets up with Doris again, and they get back
together.
VARIETY
Film Review - May 17, 1932
- by "Char"
- submitted by Barry Martin
This thesis has been told on the screen too frequently, and
usually better than in 'Sinners in the Sun.' A very weak picture
with an unimpressive future before it.
Carole Lombard and Chester Morris
are paired in the two main roles. hey are called upon to make
believable a script which sinks from its own weight. Yarn has a
premise that might have resulted in cause and effect of high
interest and entertainment value. Instead, after it splits up a
young couple, it picks them up and, crashing through all barriers
of consistency, deposits them in the same flower garden out of
which they originally came.
Opening scenes reveal the girl as a
model in a swank shop. Her boy friend is a garage mechanic. After
breaking over a silly argument, the girl becomes the kept babe of
a rich man about to be divorced, while the mechanic, turning
chauffeur, eventually marries the young matron he drives for. n
both cases the associations are brought out implausibly. Kicking
over anything to reform the first couple and bringing them
together again, the girl goes back to work in a small dress store,
while the mechanic also walks out of his kept existence, the two
meeting for the fade. Tiresome all the way through with little
comedy to offset.
Support cast does not get much of
an opportunity to upset defeat. Adrienne Ames, as the wealthy
woman, and Walter Byron, doing the model-keeper, are best.
Unusually good bit is turned in by an unbilled player who plays a
gig for an old lady.
Technically picture is standard.
NEW YORK TIMES Film
Review - May 12, 1932
- by Mordaunt
Hall
- submitted by Barry Martin
Feminine fashions, fast automobiles
and fine wines come to the fore in the course of the happenings in
"Sinners in the Sun," a pictorial adaptation of Mildred Cram's
story, "The Beachcomber," which is now at the Paramount. In screen
form it is a lavishly produced, trivial story with an abundance of acrimony.
Carole Lombard and Chester Morris are the principals, other roles being
acted by Adrienne Ames, Alison Skipworth and Walter Byron.
It is the old tale of the lure of
money and its taking second place to love. Doris Blake, played by
Miss Lombard, is the stellar fashion model in a dressmaking
establishment. It is presumed that this lovely girl rejects an
offer of marriage from Jimmie Martin, a garage mechanic, because
she has hopes of making a better match. She admits loving Martin,
but the daily routine of wearing costly gowns causes her to long
to own some of the creations. Her parents are of humble origin.
She encounters a married man named Eric Nelson, while in swimming
at East Hampton, whither she goes to appear in one of those
extraordinary motion picture Long Island fashion shows. Nelson's
motives are strictly dishonorable, be expects that his wife will
soon ask for a divorce.
As for Martin, he meets one day the
beautiful Claire Kinkaid, a socially prominent young woman, who
engages him to be her chauffeur. It is not long before she
acknowledges a devotion to Martin and the two are married. Soon
the mechanic, whose speech is not precisely of the higher order,
finds himself ill at ease as the husband of the wealthy woman.
Doris is a constant companion of
Nelson's. She scorns to become his mistress, but she accepts his
supper parties, an apartment and other luxuries. One is asked to
believe that all this time she is still in love with Martin and he
with her.
Of course, as is anticipated,
Martin and Doris are reunited at the end, glad to get away from
their wealthy companions.
In the fashion show there are
several pretty girls besides Doris, and they are arrayed in gay
sartorial creations. While this display is going on, Martin and
another chauffeur look on at the passing models, and Martin is
heartsick when he perceives his old sweetheart.
It is all more than slightly
incredible, particularly the manner in which Claire Kinkaid sets
her cap at Martin. Miss Lombard acts competently. Mr. Morris is
miscast. In spite of her thankless role, Miss Ames does efficient
work. Miss Skipworth makes the most of the part of Doris's
sympathetic mother and Walter Byron is capable as Nelson.
Frances Williams is featured in a
condensed stage version of the musical comedy "Everybody's
Welcome," which is a skittish conception of the play,
"Up Pops the Devil." Others in this attraction are Ann
Pennington, Lawrence Gray, Jack Sheehan and Harriet Lane.
Review:
- by
Kathy Fox
This is Cary Grant's second film,
and his first of three with Carole Lombard. After having started out
with a smashing THIS IN THE NIGHT earlier in 1932, this must have been a
disappointing second film to make. Mr. Grant hardly appears in the
movie at all, with probably not even 5 minutes on the screen. Chester
Morris, who had the male lead in the movie, went on to BOSTON BLACKIE fame,
but his career cannot hold a candle to that of Cary Grant's. When we
look back at this movie, in the scheme of things it is CG who should have
been the star in this film, and not Chester Morris. The entire movie
is concerned with poverty and love, wealth and love, affairs and love, and
finally returning to poverty and love. Not much there in this little
fluff film. But Cary was getting noticed. It did take him a
while. If only we knew then when we know now, his star might have
shown much brighter, earlier, but Cary took matters into his own hands when
he decided to leave Paramount in 1936 and went free-lance. Even though
Archie Leach never finished high school, Cary Grant would develop one of the
most sound minds for investments and guiding his own career that anyone in
show business has displayed before or since. We are certainly proud of
our Mr. Grant, and we all could take a lesson from him in order to rise
above our humble beginnings and become that very special person which we all
should become in life.
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