This film is 86 years old and presents such a different world from the one we live in today.
"The Reckless Hour" concerns a young model, Margaret (Dorothy Mackaill) who falls for a playboy Allen Crane (Walter Byron). Her family isn't wealthy - Margaret lives with her parents Walter and Harriett (H.B. Warner and Helen Ware). Her mother, of course, is thrilled that she's dating someone from a wealthy family.
Walter isn't. He notices she's wearing a very expensive bracelet and informs her that if she's seen wearing it, people will realize it's too expensive for him to have given her. Then what will people say? Back then, a man giving jewelry was just not done unless the two are engaged or married. Margaret says it's a fake, and besides, it's an engagement gift, to Walter's relief.
Well, the bracelet is real, as a friend informs Walter, and it really isn't an engagement gift. Margaret and Allen are fooling around in an apartment he keeps in the city. One night while on the town, they meet a friend of Allen's, Eddie (Conrad Nagel). He is immediately attracted to Margaret, and then realizes that she's sleeping with Allen.
Upset that Allen may be taking his daughter for a ride, he confronts Allen's father, who never heard of her. A confrontation between Allen, his own father, and Walter - overheard by Margaret - solidifies the fact that Allen has no intention of marrying her. Allen's father insists that if he said he would, he's going to. Margaret says no. Later she tells Walter that she's pregnant - by saying "I didn't tell him...everything."
Walter raises the money to send her to a rest home. When she returns, she learns that Eddie, who is an artist, having learned she's no longer with Allen, has been asking for her. She decides to work for him.
Really lovely film, based on a play, dealing with a common pre- Depression theme then - class differences - which ended with the Depression when writers like Clifford Odets began to write plays about the working man. And, before the code, women who slept with men before marriage weren't killed in the last reel as punishment.
Dorothy Mackaill was beautiful and gives a touching performance; Joan Blondell as her wisecracking sister is a riot. For me the best performance was by H.B. Warner. Warner is most famous for being Jesus in the DeMille King of Kings, and more famous for being Mr. Gower, the pharmacist in It's a Wonderful Life. His performance is heart- wrenching and his love for Margaret is palpable. In this film he's in his fifties but today could pass for 80. Amazing.
Excellent film - check it out.