With this romance between two con artists sharp enough to see through each other's ruses but not smart enough to stay out of trouble, Anita Loos scripted a graceful and gritty vehicle for her friend Jean Harlow's wisecracking, bluntly voluptuous persona. Fleeing a backfired street-corner scam, Eddie (Clark Gable) barges in on an unclothed and indignant Ruby (Harlow). Herself a seasoned swindler, Ruby instantly observes that even Eddie's smile is crooked-but she willingly helps him out of his jam. A backhandedly passionate courtship ensues, until a collaborative con game goes seriously awry and Ruby trades in her clingy satins for a reformatory uniform. The film's tough, intermittently satiric second half, tuned to the hum of institutional eggbeaters churning out court-ordered angel cake, makes an odd study in female solidarity: the reformatory inmates' longing for romance transcends race, ideology, and jealousy, bringing the women together to engineer the most desperate, breathlessly suspenseful wedding ever filmed.-Juliet Clark