source: Reno

Moviecut—Reno

Reno

Lawyer Richard Dix comes out to Reno, Nevada, during the waning days of the silver-mining industry. When the mines close down, he becomes the first and most successful of the divorce industry. Most of the movie concerns itself with his marriage to Gail Patrick, and its breakup due to the large number of attractive women getting divorces who seem to want to allow their husbands to divorce them for lack of faithfulness. Dix never quite falls, but he does neglect wife and child in his efforts to provide for them. Dix remains one of RKO's true stars, but their efforts to vary his programmers -- this is one -- with an A picture every year or so had ended with the failure of 1935's TRANSATLANTIC TUNNEL. He could still give a magnificent, scenery-chewing performance when the chance came along, but the studio was more interested in the profits the cheaper programmers could produce.... until they used him up and let him go.