TWO SINNERS is based on a story by Warwick Deeping and stars Otto Kruger as a man just released from prison after serving 15 years for murder. He bails England and heads to France for a new start. He meets a mousy governess (Martha Sleeper) and becomes involved in her miserable life caring for a brat (Cora Sue Collins) and dealing with the harridan mother (Minna Gombell). As the story progresses, Sleeper wins over Collins and romance starts to blossom with Kruger. But a series of events blows up all the pretty dreams and Sleeper is convicted of a crime. The ending is sort of rushed but the end result is satisfying. Sleeper and Kruger are terrific as are Collins and Gombell in their rather unsympathetic roles. Not a major studio production (released thru Republic) but well worth looking for.
2 Reviews
The sin is in the script's phony sense of reality.
mark.waltz19 December 2020
Warning: Spoilers
It's the perils of Elsie (Martha Sleeper) who takes a job working for the rotten Minna Gombell, a neglectful widowed mother who has absolutely no redeeming values. She's the description of that word from "The Women", only used in a kennel, exploiting the innocent Sleeper and crying foul when Sleeper tries to get what's coming to her when her mother becomes deathly ill.
Then there's her daughter, the initially nasty Cora Sue Collins who only changes when her mother tries to fire Sleeper. I'll give Collins credit for one thing in this unpleasant drama for her line of indicating that the one thing she's good at is replacing governesses did get me to laugh: once.
The film headlines Otto Kruger as the accused murderer, released from prison early, who befriends Sleeper and later Collins. Sleeper realizes too late after judging Kruger for his crime, but then he stands up to the law when Gombell presses charges against Sleeper. This melodramatic soap opera is dreadful in character development with Gombell completely one dimensional and Sleeper and Kruger far too angelic and always taken advantaged of. With themes that may have worked in a silent era, it just doesn't work post production code.
Then there's her daughter, the initially nasty Cora Sue Collins who only changes when her mother tries to fire Sleeper. I'll give Collins credit for one thing in this unpleasant drama for her line of indicating that the one thing she's good at is replacing governesses did get me to laugh: once.
The film headlines Otto Kruger as the accused murderer, released from prison early, who befriends Sleeper and later Collins. Sleeper realizes too late after judging Kruger for his crime, but then he stands up to the law when Gombell presses charges against Sleeper. This melodramatic soap opera is dreadful in character development with Gombell completely one dimensional and Sleeper and Kruger far too angelic and always taken advantaged of. With themes that may have worked in a silent era, it just doesn't work post production code.
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