Adela Rogers St. Johns, journalist, fiction writer, sports reporter,!nbsp;and Hollywood insider, provided cinematic source material more often than!nbsp;a finished screenplay. For her autobiographical melodrama A Free Soul,!nbsp;she wanted Joan Crawford to play the independent, sensation-driven!nbsp;socialite; St. Johns's vinegar wit and street smarts might have been!nbsp;well served by that casting. But Norma Shearer gives Jan an uncomplicated sexual aggressiveness, and a steely self-possession that doesn't temper in!nbsp;the face of both violent and passive attempts by men and family to control!nbsp;her. Ultimately a morality tale about freedom's perils, the film's first!nbsp;half lives up to the pre-Code era's sometimes exaggerated reputation for!nbsp;sexual freedom. A playfully incestuous interchange opening the film is!nbsp;probably more provocative to today's sensibilities; it prepares us for!nbsp;the frankness to follow. Lionel Barrymore won an Oscar for his full-throttle performance as a!nbsp;celebrated, hard-drinking attorney (based on St. Johns's father) who must have invented the "if it!nbsp;doesn't fit, you must acquit" defense.-Lee Amazonas