The Yellow Ticket

In Tsarist Russia, a young Jewish woman desperate to visit her ailing father acquires a special travel pass that allows her to move freely through the country, but forever brands her as a prostitute.

An odd little movie that plays like an amateur production of a larger epic. The costumes and set decorations are nice, but they can’t disguise the Southern California locales. The performers each proffer a different accent, none of them Russian. And Lionel Barrymore’s character could pass for a younger version of Mr. Potter from It’s a Wonderful Life.

Still, director Raoul Walsh works with what he has. The big finale mixes equal parts drama and chaos to great effect. It left me wishing the studio had afforded Walsh wide-screen scope and a larger budget.

Boris Karloff plays a drunken porter in an uncredited part.