Lady with a Past

Directed by Edward H. Griffith, Lady with a Past follows Constance Bennett’s Venice Muir as she hires a man (Ben Lyon’s Guy) to spread rumors about her in an effort to garner more suitors. Filmmaker Griffith, working from Horace Jackson’s script, delivers a woefully sluggish and terminally tedious endeavor that gets off to an especially lackluster start, as the movie, which runs a short-but-not-short-enough 80 minutes, opens with a padded-out first act that contains little in the way of plot or forward momentum – with Bennett’s expectedly appealing performance remaining the one bright spot within the otherwise tiresome proceedings. And although the picture does improve slightly once the actual story kicks in, which doesn’t actually happen until around a third of the way in (!), Lady with a Past has long-since cemented its place as a forgettable misfire that squanders Bennett’s charismatic efforts.

* out of ****