Clothes model Margaret Nichols meets wealthy young Allen Crane at the shop where she works. Allen immediately invites her to dinner, but Margaret, who realizes that he probably will not marry a woman from the working class, refuses. He tracks her down to her apartment above her father’s bookstore in Jersey City where she lives with her absent-minded father Walter, her well-meaning mother Harriet and her sister Myrtle. Harriet is upset because she feels her daughters are not meeting the right kind of men in Jersey City, so when Allen appears to take Margaret for a drive, she is delighted. After Allen’s parents leave to spend the summer in Europe, he rents an apartment in New York City. Margaret starts dating Allen regularly, despite her father’s concerns. Eventually, Margaret spends the night with Allen, but tells her father that she stayed with Allen’s cousins in New York. When Walter learns that Margaret’s new bracelet is not a fake as she said, but rather an expensive piece of jewelry, he investigates her story. The next morning, when Walter tells Margaret that he knows Allen has no cousins in the city, she confesses the truth, adding that they want to be married, but Allen’s father will not allow it. Walter calls on Mr. Crane and learns that Margaret is not the first woman to be involved with Allen. Crane confronts Allen in Walter’s presence and Allen denies that he ever asked Margaret to marry him. Margaret, who has followed her father, overhears his lies and even though Crane insists that Allen will be held to his promise, she says she never wants to see him again. At home, she tells her father she is pregnant. In order to get the money to send her away for the baby’s birth, Walter speculates in the stock market and loses everything. After Margaret’s baby is born dead, she decides to bury her sorrows in work. Edward Adams, an illustrator who once met Margaret when she was with Allen, offers her a job posing for him. On the last day of the job, Edward, who is married, offers to take Margaret to Europe with him. She turns him down, but when she learns of her family’s financial state and realizes they lost everything because of her, she agrees to go to France with him if he will deposit money in her bank account. In the meantime, Edward learns that his wife has divorced him. He proposes to Margaret, who, realizing that he really loves her, agrees to be married quietly on the boat. More on Wikipedia or Mubi
Watch The Reckless Hour (1931)
