Woman in the Dark 1934

Released from prison on parole, John Bradley, Ralph Bellamy, plans to live quietly in a cabin in the country. He is visited there by the sheriff’s daughter, Helen Grant, [Nell O’Day], on whose account he had got into a fight and accidentally killed a man in the past. While he is trying to persuade her to leave, a beautiful, disheveled woman in evening dress bursts in. This is Louise Loring, [Fay Wray], who has run away on foot from her rich “protector”, Tony Robson [Melvyn Douglas].

With his sidekick Conroy, Reed Brown Jr., Robson pursues Louise, and Conroy shoots Bradley’s dog. Bradley knocks out Conroy, who falls and seriously injures his head. Robson reports this to the local sheriff, Granville Bates, who wants Bradley back in jail. Tipped off by Helen, Bradley and Louise flee to the New York flat of Bradley’s old cellmate, Tommy Logan, [Roscoe Ates], and while staying there they fall in love.

Traced by the police, Bradley narrowly escapes but with a bullet in his shoulder. Meanwhile, Robson has accused Louise of theft in order to trace her, and then tries to persuade her to go back to him. Since she suspects he is of a vindictive nature and is trying to harm Bradley further, she agrees. Bradley arrives with Tommy Logan for a showdown, just as Robson has decided to murder Conroy so as to worsen the apparent case against Bradley. The two burst in and expose his plot at the last moment.