'Frisco Jenny' is a William Wellman directed pre-code picture that is an ode to the love and scarifies of motherhood. It really lays it on thick. Frisco Jenny Sandoval (Ruth Chatterton) works in her fathers bar/brother (notably not as prostitute) but hopes to change her life by marrying an aspiring musician. Both her fiancé and her father are killed in the great 1906 San Francisco earthquake (this film came out 4 years before the better known 'San Francisco', it's effects shots are much more limited) and she is left pregnant and unemployed.
Jenny has her baby boy and try's to go straight, but economic desperation drives her back and into the world of organized crime (it's never quite said outright but she's a pimp). After tangential involvement in a murder Jenny's well connected employer arranges to stash her kid with a wealthy family until the smoke clears. That process, and Jenny's efforts to put away enough money so that her and her son can make a new start of things somewhere far away, well it takes years. By the time Jenny is ready to go her son has forgotten about her and bonded with his new family. So Jenny let's him go but keeps an eye on the young man's progress even while re entering the world of shady dealings.
Jenny's son grows up to be a prosecutor who runs afoul of Jenny's boss who tries to kill him, but Jenny kills the boss before he can do so. Jenny ends up on trial, prosecuted by her own son, and is sentenced to death. Jenny refuses to divulge her real identity to her son fearing that it would ruin his life, and in the end makes the ultimate sacrifice.
A mixture of the syrupy and rough, Chatterton tries but the movies still trite and even with Wellman's expert technical handling the films only fair. **
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