ALLOTMENT WIVES

ALLOTMENT WIVES (1945). Director: William Nigh.

In another unsympathetic role in a Monogram picture, Kay Francis plays Sheila Seymour, who runs a racket in which women marry several G.I.s a piece in order to get their money. Paul Kelly is Major Peter Martin, who is investigating the racket, and Otto Kruger is Francis' partner and lover, Whitey. Sheila has an adversary in Gladys Smith (Gertrude Michael), who knew her years ago before she became a society dame and blackmails her, even going so far as to inveigle Sheila's daughter Connie (Teala Loring) into joining her own allotment racket. Francis and the others give okay performances, but a movie that should have been fun is kind of dull and disappointing. Joan Crawford could have made a lot more of the Sheila Seymour role.

Verdict: Kay at poverty row. *1/2.