JohnHowardReid It's a real shame that you cannot buy this most engaging movie any more, as the distributor seems to have gone out of business. "Blood Money" is a really interesting movie, formerly available on an excellent DVD disc, released by Vintage Film Buff, "Blood Money" (1933) was directed with a real punch and considerable style by the super- talented Rowland Brown, who makes the most of an extremely gritty screenplay in which the charismatic George Bancroft plays a bloodsucking bail bondsman and the lovely Frances Dee (of all people) a masochistic, high society floozy. Judith Anderson is also in there pitching as the hero's former glamour interest (!) while the legendary Blossom Seeley sings a couple of Rodgers and Hart numbers.

blanche-2 "Blood Money" is a fascinating precode - what else can you say about a film that has Judith Anderson in a glamor role? And an ingénue who longs for S&M to boot.This 1933 film concerns a bail bondsman named Bill Bailey (George Bancroft) who's been helping out the mob for years. He falls for a pretty shoplifter named Elaine (Frances Dee) - she's actually slumming, as she's from a wealthy family. This leaves Bailey's girlfriend, club owner Ruby (Anderson) in the lurch. She's the woman responsible for his success, helping him out when he was thrown off of the police force. However, Elaine (who would follow any man who thrashed her around like a dog, says she) steals some bonds instead of delivering them to the appropriate place, thereby setting up Bailey as a mob target and getting his brother-in-law in deep trouble with the law. Ruby believes he's responsible for her brother's problems, and has a hit put out on him.The acting is over the top, the dialogue is rough and filled with sexual innuendos, the atmosphere is sleazy - it's pre-code all right. I read a transcript of an interview with Joel McCrea (intended to be for a biography that wasn't written) and he kept referring to "Mother" - I finally realized that he didn't call his wife, Frances Dee, "mother" - he was referring to her that way while talking to one of his sons, who was conducting the interview. As the promiscuous, dying to be hit ingénue, she wasn't very motherly in this.This is a no-miss if only to see Judith Anderson in a gown and jewels hanging out with mobsters and Frances Dee as something other than a pretty goody-two-shoes.

melvelvit-1 Pre-Code Hollywood was a "fascinating period in American motion picture history from 1930 to 1934 when the commandments of the Production Code Administration were violated with impunity in a series of wildly unconventional films -a time when censorship was lax and Hollywood made the most of it..."The underworld-set BLOOD MONEY(Fox 1933), typical of its time, tweaks convention by making no apologies for its morally compromised characters or their criminal actions and risqué situations. Burly George Bancroft plays high-profile L.A. bail bondsman Bill Bailey, a man who makes a very comfortable living off society's less fortunate. Vice queen Ruby Darling (a languid, bejeweled Judith Anderson swathed in fur) put him on top after he was thrown off the police force for theft and he repays her by falling for kleptomaniac Elaine Talbart, a Beverly Hills society girl with an "underworld mania". When Bailey introduces Elaine to Ruby's bank-robber brother, Drury (Chick Chandler), sparks fly but a double-cross by Elaine forces Ruby to put an underworld contract out on Bailey. In this film's universe, criminal careers, shady politics, high society hypocrisy, prostitution, and sexual ambiguity are all alluded to in breezy fashion and even unrequited love resolves itself in an upbeat ending. Frances Dee steals the show as the over-heated Elaine, a gal who's eyes light up at the very thought of crime. She's last seen chatting up a stranger who was just manhandled and near-raped by a photographer she interviewed for; Elaine, growing visibly excited, asks the girl what floor his offices are located on and rushes off to meet him! Buxom songstress Blossom Seely, done up as "Diamond Lil", torches it up in a speakeasy and look quickly for a platinum blonde Lucille Ball playing a five dollar hooker at the dog track.

MartinHafer I called this film a "Pre-Code" film because up until the strengthened Production Code was enforced in 1934, Hollywood was a very sleazy place by even today's standards! While in the mid-30s through the 50s films were sanitized (in some cases, too much), in the Pre-Code days, topics like adultery and extreme violence were common and it was not too unusual to hear cursing, discussions of abortion or prostitution and even occasionally nudity--even in supposedly family films like TARZAN AND HIS MATE! While BLOOD MONEY isn't nearly as rough and family unfriendly as many of these films, it deserves to be considered a Pre-Code style film because the main character and his wife had an "open marriage"--he was allowed to sleep around as long as he "came home to her when the day was through". Also, the film features a bad woman who loves to break laws and have sex--though in the later 30s and for the next twenty or more years, women were NOT supposed to particularly like sex! The story is about a guy named "Bill Bailey" (George Bancroft) and he's a rather resourceful but sleazy character who is a bail bondsman and best friends with the mob. Through conniving, blackmail or what have you, Bill is able to get practically anyone off for any crime--provided they can pay! Into this supposedly charmed life comes a truly crazed young rich lady (Frances Dee)--a woman who is addicted to stealing, promiscuity and self-destruction. At first, his affair with her is approved of by his wife (Judith Anderson) but when Dee steals some bonds and sets up the wife's brother, Bill's life falls apart---leading Bill to become the mob's #1 target! This results in one of the most exciting endings in a 30s film I have ever seen, as a bombing plot to kill Bailey is discovered at the same time they also discover that Dee was responsible for the mess! Decent acting, nice pacing and direction and an exciting and daring script, this is a good example of a Pre-Code film that has managed to stay exciting even more than 70 years later.