Paid in Full

Boy what a potboiler.

Robert Cummings stars with Lizabeth Scott and Diana Lynn in "Paid in Full" from 1950.

Cummings plays Bill Prentice, who works side by side with Jane (Scott) in the advertising section of a department store. She's in love with him, but he is in love with her gold-digging sister, Nancy (Diana Lynn). He has bought an engagement ring for Nancy and wants to propose.

If you thought Veda Pierce was bad, Nancy has her beat. Right after a millionaire gives her the kiss-off, Bill proposes, and Nancy accepts. You can tell right away there are going to be problems - he wants a wedding with just Jane and a couple of other people present. She wants a $500 wedding gown (almost 6,000 in today's money) that her sister gets for her. The wedding turns into a packed church affair with bridesmaids.

Nancy is terribly unhappy - Bill doesn't pay enough attention to her. She makes him miserable. Jane, meanwhile, still in love with Bill, is dating. Since her mother died giving birth, there's apparently a genetic problem, and Jane won't be able to have children. It is her great sorrow.

Nancy has a baby but is jealous of the attention Bill gives her, is angry with Jane for decorating the nursery, and winds up cutting off Jane and doing what she can to keep her husband away from the baby.

I won't tell you the rest - it's the stuff of soap operas. Lizabeth Scott is lovely, but no one is that good a person. Diana Lynn plays her role beautifully, she's a terror. Cummings, as the man in the middle, doesn't have much to do, but he's always likeable. Eve Arden, as a coworker of Jane's and Bill's, is an outspoken riot.

This is a woman's picture, all right, the kind Kay Francis did in the early '30s.