Summary
Jill Mackie’s existence is a precarious tightrope walk over the abyss of urban destitution. Consigned to the repetitive drudgery of a sprawling department store, she finds herself ensnared in the gravitational pull of its progenitor, Charles Hemingway. Their mutual attraction is not merely a romantic whim but a collision of desperate needs: her craving for security and his thirst for emotional authenticity. However, the union is shadowed by the intransigence of Mrs. Hemingway, a figure of glacial morality who denies Charles the legal severance of their bond. This forced clandestine life culminates in Charles’s untimely demise, leaving Jill with a financial legacy that is as much a burden as a boon. Fleeing the judgment of her homeland, she seeks reinvention in foreign climes, only to encounter a young man whose apparent nobility is revealed as a hollow facade. When Jill offers him the unvarnished truth of her past, his response—a proposition to replicate her former status as a kept woman—shatters the illusion, prompting a definitive break that underscores the film’s cynical thesis on the immutability of social stigma.
Synopsis
Poverty forces Jill Mackie to work in a department store, where she falls in love with its owner, Charles Hemingway. They form an illicit alliance when Mrs. Hemingway refuses to grant Charles a divorce. Eventually, Hemingway becomes ill and dies, leaving Jill a sum of money. She leaves the country and falls in love with a young man to whom she confides her past, but breaks with him when he suggests that they make a similar arrangement.
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