The film for which Francis is best remembered is Paramount’s Trouble in Paradise (1932), a supreme sophisticated comedy and one of director Ernst Lubitsch’s key works. Alongside skilled pros Herbert Marshall and Miriam Hopkins, Francis needed only to be lovely and captivating (result: she’s flawless). Another standout Francis picture is Confession (1937), an exceptional you-don’t-know-I’m-your-mother saga, marked by Joe May’s visually striking direction. But the quintessential Kay Francis movie has to be One Way Passage, released the same year as the Lubitsch film, making 1932 the peak of her career. The best product of Francis’s time at Warner Brothers (1932-39), One Way Passage is one of the great old-fashioned romantic movies of the 1930s. To some it may play as a virtual checklist of its genre’s clichés, yet the film transcends convention. When melodrama is served as expertly as it is here, the outcome is both memorable and moving. Directed by Tay Garnett, One Way Passage is a model of compact pacing; it adroitly balances dramatic and comedic material; it features fluid camerawork that enhances the stylishness of its storytelling. Movies were just emerging from the static nature of most early talkies, and One Way Passage’s cinematography has a liberating mobility that enlivens the picture. With five extremely likeable main characters, a compulsively absorbing plot, and shimmering production values, One Way Passage is a film whose heightened reality is always anchored by honest emotion.

excerpted from John DiLeo’s
Screen Savers: 40 Remarkable Movies Awaiting Rediscovery
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