Neil Doyle
Loretta Young looks angelically beautiful as an immoral young woman, radiant in all of her many close-ups. Her eyes have such an innocent beauty despite the fact that her character is supposed to have the sort of hard edge usually assigned to Harlow or Crawford. The story asks us to believe she had an early pregnancy from a man who deserted her and left her with a bratty son whom she smothers with mother love while garbed in glamorous clothes.It also asks us to accept Cary Grant as a wealthy millionaire who takes pity on her situation and invites the boy to live with him in his posh home in the country. Grant seems a bit ill at ease here, and clearly had not yet fully developed his typical Cary Grant persona. Still, it's interesting to see both he and Loretta cast against type in this kind of story. I don't agree with harsh words about Jackie Kelp's performance as her son. I found him reasonably believable in the part although he did look more than the supposed seven years. Loretta's scheme is to ingratiate herself with Grant so that she can steal the boy back even though Grant can give him everything.The weak, abrupt ending is probably due to production code etiquette which was still having a hard time with all the sordid ingredients implied by the script. It's an unsatisfying ending for a story that could have been developed with more care for the downbeat ending.Minor characters are very underdeveloped, notably that of Henry Travers as Young's loyal friend.Summing up: More of a curiosity piece for Loretta Young's fans than anything else--and she was definitely a vision of beauty in her early 20s.
bkoganbing
Born To Be Bad takes the unusual step of casting the normally wholesome Loretta Young as a bad girl. She's not only a woman of easy virtue, she's got an out of wedlock kid to prove it in the person of young Jackie Kelk. She supports herself and Kelk with a job at Henry Travers's bookstore.But Loretta thinks she might have hit the mother lode when Kelk gets hit by a dairy truck that belongs to rich farmer Cary Grant. She's going to follow the American dream of getting rich by suing somebody with deep pockets. And she's got an attorney in Harry Green from the whiplash Willie Gingrich school of shyster attorneys to help out. But Grant's attorney Paul Harvey gets the goods on them.For a film which strays into The Fortune Cookie territory it then takes the road to Stella Dallas as Grant and his sterile wife Marion Burns offer to adopt young Kelk to give him a decent home. Loretta's down, but her bag of tricks is far from empty.Young was already a star and Cary Grant was up and coming, but hadn't quite found his niche yet in comedy. He's a serviceable leading man her nothing more. As for Loretta she was certainly one sexy package when the picture called for it. Born To Be Bad will never be rated in the top films of either Cary Grant or Loretta Young, but it did no harm to either star.As for the ending, think Stella Dallas.
SuperKelli15@hotmail.com
I want to comment on that the romance was there...I just want ed to say that I thought the ending would be better, but she just leaves.. I think eventually in the future if this was a true story that she would stay with him... Like if they made a sequel to this that she would come back and be with him in the end with Mickey...With saying that.. I pretty much liked the rest of the movie.. I think that Cary Grant is very gorgeous in his younger years in this movie.. and Loretta Young is just as beautiful as she is in The Bishops wife (Which Cary Grant plays her guardian angel also in which he falls in love with her)... The movie is a lesson to stay strong and tough....and lie... to get out of unbeatable predicaments.
serious89
Having grown up w/Loretta Young as a paragon of virtue in her TV show and her movies (seen on TV) - The Bishop's Wife, The Famer's Daughter, Come to the Stable, etc, etc, etc - I was surprised and entertained by this bauble. She plays a slut w/verve, AND she is dressed w/ her habitual hyper elegance. She changes outfits 5or 6 times a day, evidently. Her rather brutal screaming at her raucous son strikes an odd note, making her (no other word will do) horniness even more striking. Cary Grant is about as long-suffering & gullible as he was w/ Mae West, but he also looks good. Fast, sentimental and raunchy, she even gets to tear up several times - a swell little film.
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