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Perfect cast and a good story

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

The acting in this movie is really good.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

This has to be one of the few Monogram releases I've reviewed and that's only because Kay Francis rounded out her career on Poverty Row. Francis is an actress I've heard described in glowing, nay, reverential terms all my life but seldom, if ever, seen on screen. I came close when I saw - and loved - the remake, with George Brent and Merle Oberon, of the Kay Francis/William Powell bittersweet One-Way Passage. From what I've read she was, during the thirties, Warners top actress but then they cut her loose and she struck a deal to produce and star in three movies at Monogram after which she rode into the sunset. Allotment Wives is the only one of the three I've seen and she is, apparently, cast against type as a heavy, the honcho of a ring of scammers who use a USO type club to set servicemen up with women prepared to marry them and then claim their allotment. Paul Kelly is tapped to break up the racket and it all ends in tears with Francis getting one of the all-time great last lines on celluloid; 'nice shooting' she says to the guy who has just placed a slug where it will do the most good. Class to the end.

In 1945, with offers dwindling, Kay Francis made a last attempt at a film comeback by forming her own producing company with Jeffrey Bernerd. Bernerd was a feisty Englishman who had produced some exploitation movies, including "Where Are Your Children" and "Are These Our Parents". Even though Kay had been associated with studios such as Paramount and Warner Bros., the studio where Kay ended up making her last three movies was lowly Monogram, "the graveyard of burned out stars". Though Bernerd remembered her royal treatment in her heyday he was surprised at her ruthless penny pinching approach which included looking out for low budget stories and with "Allotment Wives" even rewriting the script. The picture had a 10 day shooting schedule with the main objective being to make money. Kay certainly did try to tackle hard hitting subjects, first with "Divorce" and now with "Allotment Wives" which tried to delve into the problem of women who bigamously marry soldiers in order to collect benefits.This movie, which allowed Kay to be totally unsympathetic yet fascinating, starts in an almost documentary fashion, introducing the "Office of Dependency Benefits" which supported the wives of servicemen. When Peter Martin (Paul Kelly) finds that his good friend has killed himself (due to finding out his new bride already has several husbands) he goes under cover and his search leads him to Sheila Seymour (Francis). She runs a canteen that caters for servicemen in more ways than the obvious. She recruits her "hostesses" from her beauty shop which in turn is a front for a "Allotment Wives" syndicate.One of the hostesses, Gladys Smith (Gertrude Michael) recognises Sheila as an old partner in crime. They had both been petty criminals although Sheila mysteriously escaped reform school and now Gladys is out for revenge and she finds it in Connie. Connie (Teala Loring) is Sheila's secret, a rebellious daughter who she has been shielding in an exclusive girl's school but Connie is only too eager to get involved in the high living and bright lights that Gladys introduces her to. Toward the end the movie swings into action with Sheila showing to what lengths she will go to, to protect her daughter. Guns blaze, bodies fall over beds, even Sheila's right hand man, Whitey (Otto Kruger) takes a bullet to protect Connie who doesn't seem a particularly agreeable girl.Gertrude Michael turned up in many programmers during the thirties, always playing elegant types, so she must have hoped a surprising lead in "The Notorious Sophie Lang" (1934) would push her into the big time. Unfortunately she was disappointed and by the early 1940s she was even clinging on to poverty row programmers but she could always be proud of Sophie Lang.

The great Kay Francis was an astute actress. She knew this project was going to be her farewell to a distinguished movie career and decided to co-produce the picture herself, something that assured one of the best roles she made in the industry. She proved she was quite at home in sophisticated comedies, as well as portraying this Sheila Seymour, who was some piece of work. Working with director William Nigh, "Allotment Wives" doesn't pretend to be anything other than an entertaining drama with a shade of film noir mixed in.Sheila Seymour is the sly head of a racket that involved monies that phony wives claimed about GIs fighting WWII. Her front is some sort of a canteen where soldiers mix with girls for entertainment and where some of the candidates for doing the dirty jobs can be found. Sheila is also the owner of a salon where wealthy ladies are pampered and who love to return Sheila's kindness by offering their help giving the soldiers a nice send off before they have to go to war. Little does Sheila know her empire was coming to a tragic end when Pete Martin enters the picture!Kay Francis is excellent, as always. She wasn't a beauty by Hollywood standards, but what a presence she projected! She put most of her peers to shame, as she shows in this picture. Paul Kelly, Otto Kruger, Gertrude Michael, Teala Loring, and the rest of the supporting players make the best of their characters."Allotment Wives" was a rare find when we stumbled into it by just pure coincidence. It is recommended for fans of Kay Francis. She will not disappoint.

There is great cause for celebration among fans of obscure and esoteric films because ALLOTMENT WIVES (1945), a provocative and tremendously fascinating example of poverty row noir finally premieres on Turner Classic Movies on September 26. Produced as part of a three picture deal between star / producer Kay Francis and Monogram Pictures, this peculiar trilogy served as Miss Francis' Hollywood swan song. The other two films, DIVORCE (1945) and WIFE WANTED (1946) are both well-produced, better than average melodramas, but nowhere near as ambitious or entertaining as ALLOTMENT WIVES. What this film might lack in customary Hollywood sophistication it more than makes up for in gnarly pulp energy. Francis plays Sheila Seymour, a sleek and stylish society gal who in reality is the head of a noxious crime syndicate that preys mercilessly on returning World War II servicemen. They zero in on impressionable and lonely vets and before long they're engaged to one of Sheila's "girls." After pocketing the GI's allotment pay, the gals are soon on their way to their next mark, leaving a trail of devastated saps strewn along the post-war landscape. Things become emotionally complicated when Sheila's beautiful young daughter Corrine (Teala Loring) arrives home from her swanky boarding school (she's been oblivious to Mom's business dealings) and slowly begins to unravel the sordid details of her mother's dreadful criminal activities. Also in the cast are the wonderfully creepy Otto Kruger as Francis' odious partner in crime, the equally creepy Paul Kelly as a military investigator and the always menacing Gertrude Michael as one of Francis' old racket rivals who's out for a little revenge. In many ways this film bears more than a passing resemblance to the much tonier and more famous MILDRED PIERCE, released by Warner Bros the same year. But ALLOTMENT WIVES gets the nasty tone of noir's tawdrier aspects better than Michael Curtiz' glossy soap opera. In fact, the crucial showdown scene between mother and daughter at the climax of ALLOTMENT WIVES plays out much more dramatically and, more importantly, realistically than the overwrought scenes between Joan Crawford and Ann Blyth. For those who enjoy their film noir a bit on the exotic side, ALLOTMENT WIVES is must viewing, especially for those with a predisposition for down and dirty, unpretentious poverty row entertainment.