The Love Piker

Four sisters come of age in America in the aftermath of the Civil War.

Wealthy socialite Charlotte Cartwright and her dear friend Alice Pratt, a working class woman of high ideals, have enjoyed a lasting friendship throughout several decades. Recently, their lives have become mired in turmoil as their adult children’s extramarital affairs, unethical business practices, and a dark secret threaten to derail family fortunes and unravel the lives of all involved. Charlotte and Alice decide to take a breather from it all by making a cross-country road trip in which they rediscover themselves and possibly find a way to save their families from ruin.

John Kirby is in desperate financial straits so when his wife Margaret refuses his request to help him obtain a loan from her guest, Gordon Pell, he attempts suicide and failing that becomes seriously ill. Margaret grudgingly takes in boarders mixing with people outside her social set. As her resentment grows Lucille, John's former flame, forges telegrams to drive a wedge further between them, but Gordon steps in the clear the air and the pair work through their difficulties.

A housewife divorces her self-centered husband. Years later, she attends a party where her ex is pursuing another woman. Unbeknownst to him, she is the same ex-wife he'd neglected, now transformed into a fashionable socialite.

An unwed mother watches as her illegitimate son is raised by others. Director Lambert Hillyer's 1934 drama stars Jean Arthur, Richard Cromwell, Donald Cook, Anita Louise, Jane Darwell, Mary Forbes and Ward Bond.