★★★
Bad Girl is an O. Henry short story wrapped in comedy. Like in “The Gift of the Magi,” the two protagonists here miscommunicate throughout, though O. Henry lets things run to a bitter conclusion while Frank Borzage reigns in the consequences for this comedy. Early in the film, Eddie says that he thinks things but they don’t come out like he thinks, and this condition governs much of what we see. Dorothy thinks that Eddie doesn’t want them to have the baby she’s carrying, while Eddie is desperately doing everything he can to care for her and prepare for the child. He’s gives up his dream of having his own store for Dorothy, and he’s almost late for the birth itself because he’s trying to get more money for Dorothy’s preferred doctor. Dorothy meanwhile loves Eddie and wants him to realize his ambitions, but she’s saddened by what she thinks is his aversion to fatherhood. Three-quarters of Bad Girl unspools with this misunderstanding as its most significant narrative spring.
But Bad Girl is a comedy at base, and Borzage layers in humor at every possible moment, most of it related to gender roles. The film opens with a funny sight gag when we realize that what looks like a wedding is actually a department store show of wedding dresses, and a good deal of the rest of the humor in the sequence centers on the harassment women face in public from men. The film follows this same line of humor as the girls leave the department store and later that evening at Coney Island with the women sarcastically batting away the constant harassment men direct towards them. Later in the film, another sight gag also draws its humor from gender roles. The shot starts with an apron and hands washing dishes until the camera draws back showing that we’re watching Eddie doing the dishes and not Dorothy, another good-natured dig at gender expectations. Overall, the funniest dialog in the film occurs in the banter between Edna and Eddie, and it largely plays on what women should do and what men actually do. It’s a forecast of future screwball. A later, extended sequence in the film takes the gender joking beyond dialog as it dwells on how hard it is for men in the hospital to wait for their wives to deliver the baby. It’s a funny and obviously ironic take on the birthing experience. There’s other humor in Bad Girl to mitigate the pain from the misunderstandings between Dorothy and Eddie. As they discover during a conversation while they’re locked up in a mid-ring fight, both Eddie and the professional boxer are fathers; this being the case, the pro lets Eddie last a few extra rounds to increase his earnings to take home for Dorothy. It’s a funny scene that doesn't play on gender roles but that’s set up early in the film when Dorothy brushes off a suitor by saying her boyfriend is a boxer.
Bad Girl is not without its serious elements. There’s a lot of pathos when Eddie breaks down and tells Dr. Burgess of his love for Dorothy and his anxiety to provide for her. And overall, the film shows the travails of the working man, from the life we see in the tenement houses to the financial worries of the service clerks in stores. But Bad Girl never successfully blends the serious, the humorous and the central plot device of the misunderstandings within the central couple. It’s a good enough look at the early sound period, but this Borzage project never pulls its content together enough to make itself more than a pleasant time at the screen.
