Universal gave Whale the job of adapting a popular and topical stage play for his first Hollywood assignment. Roy, a naïve American soldier in London during World War I, falls in love with the winsome Myra, another American, played by the mesmerizing Mae Clarke. Claiming to work as a chorus girl, Myra cannot tell Roy that she has lost her job and now makes her living as a prostitute. Out of this melodramatic (and definitely pre-Code) material, Whale fashions a vivid tale of sacrifice and suffering whose box office success quickly earned Whale a spot as one of Universal’s top directors. Look for a young Bette Davis in one of her first roles as the soldier’s sister.

After Frankenstein, Whale returned to melodrama with another vehicle for Mae Clark, one of the most sadly neglected great actresses from the 1930s. Here she is a young career woman in love with an ambulance driver who hopes to become a doctor. He wants to establish his medical practice before they marry, but her willingness to wait is complicated by the attentions of her boss. The film’s casual and racy view of pre- and extra-marital affairs marks it as prime pre-Code melodrama, one that was, in fact, at one point envisioned as a vehicle for Clara Bow.) Whale’s camera, highly mobile as usual, sails right through a handful of walls as it tracks the characters.