The Escape

This second filmization of Paul Armstrong’s play +Escape is a bleak study of slum life. Virginia Valli plays May Joyce, the daughter of a scummy bootlegger who falls in love with medical intern Jerry Magee (William Russell). When May is forced to go to work in a sleazy nightclub, Jerry becomes so disconsolate that he loses his job and takes to bootlegging himself. Only when forced to confront himself does Jerry straighten up and seek out a new life, with May at his side. William Demarest provides comic relief as a minor gangster.