One-of-a-kind stage, silent and sound star Alice Brady delivers a remarkable performance alongside costar Maureen O'Sullivan in this pre-Code melodrama about a mother's twisted love, based on a book by backstage tell-all master Bradford Ropes of 42nd Street fame. Vaudeville star Kitty Lorraine (Brady) is forced to give up her infant daughter to her in-laws after her husband's death. Years later, when she has outgrown the boards, she sends for her innocent daughter, Shirley (O'Sullivan), and grooms her, Pygmalion-style, to be the stage sensation Kitty never was. But as Shirley matures, she enters into a romance with painter Warren Foster (Franchot Tone), a romance that Kitty twists into something sordid as she extracts a payout from Warren's wealthy parents beginning a pattern for both mother and daughter.