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Frisco Jenny is a 1932 American pre-Code drama film directed by William A. Wellman and starring Ruth Chatterton and Louis Calhern. Its story bears a resemblance to Madame X (1929), Chatterton's previous hit film.
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The Barbary Coast is no place for modesty or dignity.Jenny is a good girl who falls in love with a good man who knocks her up before they’re married.Her dad is none too thrilled about this and belts her a good one when he finds out.Jenny becomes the kingpin of the San Francisco underworld, first starting with prostitutes before working her way up to gambling and rum running.“Let me save you! Let me lead you to the better life!” the preacher, Good Book Charlie (Frank McGlynn Sr.), pleads in the Barbary bar. No one pays him much mind, except to ridicule him. It’s a raucous atmosphere. Girls switch from man to man, offering one of a dozen duplicate keys to prove their amorous loyalty and then slyly removing them from the...
A more in-depth discussion of this movie is available in fourth issue of The Pre-Code Companion. You can also see other available issues and topics covered in the series by clicking hereor on the b...
This film is available in Forbidden Hollywood, Volume 3, along with Other Men’s Women, The Purchase Price, Midnight Mary, Heroes for Sale, and Wild Boys of the Road. You can buy the collection at A...Frisco Jenny: Directed by William A. Wellman. With Ruth Chatterton, Louis Calhern, Helen Jerome Eddy, Donald Cook. The San Francisco earthquake shakes up the life of Jenny, a madam who gives birth to an illegitimate son and gives him up to protect him.
- (1.2K)
- Crime, Drama, Music
- William A. Wellman
- 1933-01-14
Apr 8, 2022 · This is sort of like Madame X with an earthquake. The earthquake is the best part. The story is set in San Francisco just prior to the 1906 earthquake and fire. Frisco Jenny Sandoval helps her abusive father (Robert Emmet O’Conner) run a low-rent saloon on the Barbary Coast. She is in charge of the many prostitutes that ply their trade there.
Frisco Jenny bears resemblance to another Chatterton vehicle called Madame X (1929), where a woman must give up her illegitimate son, and he ends up being her defense lawyer years later. Tropes: Affectionate Pickpocket: The woman at the brothel is shown sitting on a drunken man's lap.
It shares a similar situation with Chatterton's earlier Madame X, but Jenny is a woman completely displaced by the 1906 earthquake. She loses her father, her fiancé, and her whole way of life, plus, she's pregnant.
The Ruth Chatterton of her glorious success “Madame X" and ; “Sarah and Son’’ returned to the screen at the Plaza theater Sunday in First National’s colorful drama of the Barbary Coast ' “Frisco Jenny,’’ and gave the i greatest performance of her ca-
