Programme notes CH 02 — Noir After Dark
Paid
A shopgirl jailed for somebody else's theft comes out to beat the law at its own game.
Joan Crawford goes to prison for a theft she did not commit, serves three years, and comes out having learned one thing: the law is a set of rules, and rules can be read closely. Bayard Veiller's 1912 stage hit had been filmed twice silent; this time Charles MacArthur, two years after The Front Page, wrote the talk, and it is quick. Mary Turner's new trade is the legal swindle, worked with a gentleman crook (Robert Armstrong) and an old cellmate (Marie Prevost), until a burglary she wanted no part of brings a gun with a silencer into the house. Watch Adrian's clothes keep the score: the shopgirl's cloche gives way to a woman who can afford a lawyer.
Credits — follow anyone
- Directed by
- Sam Wood
- Photographed by
- Charles Rosher
Every name is a door — each opens onto everything else that person made in the network.
The thread · every thread
Robert Armstrong as the gentleman crook twice in a year: here he runs the racket himself, in Paid he goes partners with Joan Crawford. The same manners, a different senior partner.