Faithless

Directed by Harry Beaumont, Faithless follows a New York socialite (Tallulah Bankhead’s Carol) as she and her on-again-off-again beau (Robert Montgomery’s Bill) experience a series of hardships. Filmmaker Beaumont, working from a screenplay by Carey Wilson, delivers a mostly underwhelming and uninvolving endeavor that fares especially poorly within its sluggish opening stretch, as the movie’s paucity of plot paves the way for a momentum-free first half devoid of compelling episodes or digressions. And while the picture admittedly does improve slightly once Carol and Bill hit rock bottom, with the degree to which the characters suffer impressive in its grimness (eg Carol turns to prostitution, Bill experiences a life-threatening accident, etc), Faithless, despite its short running time, is simply never able to become as consistently engrossing (or even entertaining) as Beaumont has surely intended.

** out of ****