Unashamed

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Unashamed

Debutante Joan Ogden is in love with playboy Harry Swift. His father wants him to stop borrowing money from him, come home, marry a sweet German girl, and work in the family store. The two fathers have a meeting and her wealthy father threatens to take away her money. Harry refuses to let her go. With her reputation at stake, he is willing to marry her but only with her father's permission and thereby restoring her money. In the confrontation with her father, her brother Dick shoots him dead. This is a pre-Code drama. There is pre-marital sex although they are careful to not say it directly. The subject matter is taboo for its time. Despite Harry's gold digging, his father's vengeful wish is the only truly rooting interest in this movie. He is the voice of reason time and time again. There is certainly no rooting interest for either of the siblings. That's why there is a perfect dark ending to this tug-of-war over a girl's virginal reputation and this film doesn't go there.

Helen Twelvetrees is a spoiled rich girl who falls for an obvious cad. He wants her money. She wants him. Her father doesn't approve. His hardworking father, Jean Hersholt, doesn't either. Most of all, her brother doesn't approve. The brother is played by Robert Young. He gives an excellent performance that is not at all perky or cute. His character seems dazed but also driven. Indeed, there is a strong hint of more than brotherly love in the feelings he shows for her. Notging like those in "Scraface," still shocking over seventy years later. But it's there. The movie is very good and never gives in to sentimentality. I like Twelvestrees. She was attractive and acted well. She ought not to have been shot from behind, which she is often in his movie. Her face, not her derrière, was her strong point.