Line #12 Film/FriscoJenny


1	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/img_1102_4.JPG]]
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3	''Frisco Jenny'' (1932) is a [[UsefulNotes/ThePreCodeEra pre-Code]] melodrama directed by Creator/WilliamAWellman, starring Ruth Chatterton and Louis Calhern.
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5	Pregnant and alone after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, Jenny Sandolvar (Chatterton) tries her best to make ends meet for her son, Dan. But after being arrested for being part of a cover-up murder, Jenny gives Dan up to the prosperous Reynolds family to hide him from child services. However, she realizes he’s better off without her, so she [[GiveHimANormalLife lets him stay with the Reynolds for good]].
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7	Twenty years pass, and Jenny has watched Dan (Donald Cook) grow up into a prominent lawyer, who’s now running for district attorney. She has kept her distance all these years to protect him, but her business partner, Steve Dutton (Calhern), gets caught running bootleg alcohol under Dan’s new no-corruption policies, and Steve’s willing to expose the truth to Dan to avoid jail time. Jenny [[MurderIsTheBestSolution kills Steve]], and in a strange twist of fate, Dan prosecutes her, sentencing her to death.
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9	''Frisco Jenny'' bears resemblance to another Chatterton vehicle called ''Madame X'' (1929), where a woman must give up her illegitimate son, and he ends up being her defense lawyer years later.
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12	!!Tropes:
13	* AffectionatePickpocket: The woman at the brothel is shown sitting on a drunken man's lap. While distracting him with a kiss, she steals his wallet from his breast pocket, takes the money out, puts the wallet back, then discreetly draws a little circle on his shoulder with a chalk (a sign to other pickpockets that he has no extra money to be fleeced).
14	* DarkSecret: The fact that Jenny is Dan’s mother. A secret that Jenny's willing to kill in order to conceal.
15	* DarkAndTroubledPast: Jenny’s life: She loses her lover and father in the earthquake, gives up her son because he no longer knows his own mother, and continues a life a crime because it's the only thing she knows.
16	* DatingWhatDaddyHates: Jenny is in love with Dan Sr. and is pregnant with his child. Her father won’t allow them to get married.
17	* DepartmentOfChildDisservices: Jenny decides to hide her Dan from Child Services because they want to take him because she’s a madam.
18	* DramaticIrony: We all know that Dan is sending his own mother to the gallows.
19	* DownerEnding: Not only is Jenny going to be hanged for the murder of Steve, but her son will never know that she was his mother.
20	* GiveHimANormalLife: Once Jenny was rich enough, she went to the Oakland family that had kept her son for three years. But Dan doesn’t recognize his own mother, leaving Jenny devastated and realizing that his life would be better with the Reynolds family.
21	* MissKitty: Jenny is part of a brothel ring that brings in a lot of money.
22	* MySecretPregnancy: Since this is the early 20th century, Jenny has to hide her pregnancy from the world.
23	* SleazyPolitician: Tom Ford, the former District Attorney. Jenny and Steve bribe him with a box of cigars and $10,000 inside the box for an added bonus.
24	** Steve tries the same with Dan, but it doesn’t work.
25	* WouldHitAGirl: When Jenny’s father finds out she’s pregnant, he slaps her across the face.
26	* VideoCredits: Many Warner Bros. and First National films began this way in the pre-code era.

Context Film / FriscoJenny