1931 film
Bad Sister is a 1931 American pre-Code drama film directed by Hobart Henley. The screenplay by Edwin H. Knopf, Tom Reed, and Raymond L. Schrock is based on the 1913 novel The Flirt by Booth Tarkington, which had been filmed in 1916 and 1922.
The film marks the screen debuts of both Bette Davis and Sidney Fox (who was billed over Davis). The cast also includes Humphrey Bogart and ZaSu Pitts in supporting roles. Bad Sister has been preserved in the Library of Congress collection.[1][2]
Plot
Set in the 1930s, Marianne Madison, bored with her routine life, falls for dashing con artist Valentine Corliss, who has come to her small town looking for fresh marks to swindle. She has many suitors, including the desirable Dr. Lindley and the portly Mr. Trumbull. In a chance encounter, she meets Corliss when out on a date with Dr. Lindley, feigns to know Valentine, and leaves her date to head home with Valentine.
Corliss soon charms her into faking her well-respected father's name on a letter of endorsement, which he presents to a small group of local merchants, who willingly give him money. Corliss then prepares his escape, but not before conning Marianne to leave with him with the promise of marriage.
Her sister Laura is sweet and unassuming, and she is in love with Dr. Lindley, who does not return her affections. Her younger brother hands her personal diary to Dr. Lindley when he visits the house to look after her father, who has collapsed after being berated by Marianne for not supporting Valentine without verifying him. Dr. Lindley is flustered and excuses himself. Laura burns her diary and with it her hopes of marrying him.
Meanwhile, after spending a night together in his Columbus hotel room, Valentine abandons Marianne.
Angry, ashamed, no longer a maiden—and unmarried—she returns home and announces to her jilted fiancé Dr. Lindley that she will now marry him. However, she has toyed with him too much, and he informs her that he has fallen in love with her shy younger sister Laura and that he no longer returns her affections.
All is not lost; after confessing to her father and the duped investors, Marianne accepts wealthy but portly Wade Trumbull's marriage proposal. Trumbull bails her father completely out of his debt, and during their first year of marriage, Marianne comes to be genuinely fond of him.
