"Thank you for the great service, the care in which you double pack an order to prevent damage is the best I have ever seen. You now have a lifelong customer."
Robert B.
Somerville, MA

View More >>

Variety, March 27, 1935

The Woman in Red (1935)

First national production and Warner Bros. Release. Stars Barbara Stanwyck; features Gene Raymond, Genevieve Tobin, John Eldridge, Phillip Reed. Directed by Robert Florey. From Wallace Irwin’s novel, "North Shore". Mary McCall Jr., Peter Milne, screen play; Stanley Logan, dialog director; Sol Polito, camera. At Roxy, N.Y., week March 22 ’35. Running time, 68 mins.

Shelby Barrett	Barbara Stanwyck
Johnny Wyatt	Gene Raymond
Nicko	Genevieve Tobin
Eugene Fairchild	John Eldridge
Dan	Phillip Reed
Olga	Dorothy Tree
Clayton	Russell Hicks
Aunt Bettina	Nella Walker
Grandfather Wyatt	Claude Gillingwater
Mrs. Casserly	Doris Lloyd
Wyatt Furness	Hale Hamilton
Stuart Wyatt	Gordon Elliott
Nels Ericson	Fred Vogeding

Familiar story which telegraphs its punches well in advance and yet works up to an exciting finale in spite of a courtroom scene, thanks more to the direction that the story itself. It gives Barbara Stanwyck a chance to pretty well run the gamut of emotion, and that’s the chief point of importance. Stanwyck fans will like it. Others probably will find it mildly interesting.

This time she’s a professional horsewoman, riding for Genevieve Tobin, who’s also supporting a polo team, but that’s not supposed to be professional. Gene Raymond, of the team, falls hard for Miss Stanwyck to the distress of John Eldridge, who wants her himself. She marries Raymond, is snubbed by his proud but impoverished family. She persuades Raymond to turn his Long Island estate into a training and boarding stable. She gets the money from Fairchild when her grandfather fails here, but lets Raymond believe the money came from her relative. She gets jammed, innocently enough, on Fairchild’s yacht when a tipsy showgirl falls of the rail. Eldridge is accused by his first officer of having pushed her overboard. He protects Miss Stanwyck, believe that should the story come out it would hurt her chances of winning over the family. At the last moment her testimony saves him from the chair. Eldridge again offers marriage, but Raymond Sticker (sic) to her and she’s happy.

Nothing to thrill over, but the trial bit is saved by alternating it with a hunting breakfast (the story is cast in the horsey set on Long Island) and it does not wear thin through being held too long. There is plenty of excitement worked up, chiefly through the direction, and Miss Stanwyck gets her full chance to emote. In the earlier scenes she plays in a subdued vein, which is rather fetching.

Both Raymond and Eldredge give good support, though the latter suffers from what the author makes him do. Fred Beogeding, in a brief bit as the first officer, gives plausibility to his rather unbelievable character, and Dorothy Tree gets tanked without becoming annoying. Claude Gillingwater is in for a couple of good bits and does much to whip things up at the finish.

Nicely produced with handsome outdoor backgrounds, including a yacht club that looks like a yacht club.

copyright © 1935 Variety