Snappy comedy drama. With all the biting dialogue and crusty dames, I kept thinking '30's Warner Bros. but it's RKO on a Warner's trip. Bennet and Kelton are a couple of hookers on probation looking for a way to get by. So guess what, Bennet meets sugar daddy Halliday who sets her up in comfort after initial misgivings (she probably applied her professional know-how). So it's now a bed of roses except that she can't get over cotton barge captain McCrea. Trouble is he's a straight shooter who might reject her if he finds out about her past. So what's she to do-- stay with sugar daddy or follow her heart and risk rejection. And will Kelton's presence help since she's a constant reminder.All in all, it's a little gem, with sassy Kelton providing spark. Some of the lines are knee-slappers, like the guy who tells the girl he's a boll-weevil exterminator to which she replies, "I ain't done nothin' ". Mc Crea may get top male billing, but it's really Halliday getting the screentime. Note too how the screenplay finesses prostitution even though 1933 is still pre-Code. And that's along with cracks about Prohibition, which was about to end its 13-dry years. Anyway, thanks to the writers including underrated director La Cava, it's a nifty programmer of the sort old movie fans love to stumble across. I know I did.

Bed Of Roses is the fourth and final film that Joel McCrea and Constance Bennett did which certainly should qualify them as a screen team. Paired by RKO Pictures the two worked well together.The fact that both Bennett and Pert Kelton are a pair of prostitutes recently released from prison qualifies this film as a before the Code classic. The picture is quite frank about what they do.In fact they're back doing it as soon as they're released shows they haven't repented. But both are looking for some comfortable permanent arrangements. For Kelton she manages to rope a traveling salesman, but in that same dodge Bennett jumps off a Mississipi riverboat fleeing from the captain after she's caught rolling another of the salesman for his dough.Where she's picked up by Joel McCrea who runs and lives on a cotton barge. Thanks, but no thanks says Bennett, she's after bigger game and lands it in the person of New Orleans millionaire John Halliday.I won't say any more, you know how this will end. And remember this is before the Code went in place. The lack of the Code made motion pictures a lot more free with details, but the American movie-going public expected stories to go a certain way.What might have been nice is a bit more of Pert Kelton, her scenes have some real bite to them, but Bennett and McCrea acquit themselves well here.

Constance Bennett and Pert Kelton are a comical hoot playing two small-time hustlers on the make for wealthy husbands; Joel McCrea is a riverboat skipper who falls for Constance, who gives the earthy captain nothing but heartache. Extremely brief early talkie directed by Gregory La Cava, who also worked on the screenplay. McCrea is attractive and likable (as usual), and there are several snappy dialogue exchanges, amusing interplay between the gals. Nice collection of character actors in the supporting cast, including Jane Darwell as a prison matron. Nothing extraordinary, but a fairly fun outing with a satisfying wrap-up. ** from ****

A witty vehicle for the beautiful Constance Bennett, this has dialogue that seems to aspire to that of Noel Coward.Bennett and the delightful Pert Kelton leave prison at the same time. (Later, Bennett refers to Kelton as her roommate from convent. One wonders if Patrick Dennis was inspired by this when he had Belle Poitrine describe her reform school friend Winnie as a friend from boarding school. This occurs in "Little Me," one of the most hilarious books ever written and surely, 40 years or more after its publication, a dead-on commentary on movie star autobiographies.) Bernnett finds herself a nice sugar daddy in John Halliday. He sets her up in some swank apartment, let me tell you! Alas, she meets Joel McCrea, here the owner of a fishing boat. He looks bony here -- but as gorgeous a man as ever graced the screen. His only equal was Gary Cooper around this time.Bennett falls for him and is willing to dump her riches to take to the sea with him -- as who in his or her right mind would not have. These plans are thwarted by jealous Halliday. But after a Mardi Gras sequence that doesn't entirely work, all ends happily -- at least for our two beautiful stars.