Corsair

Crime is treated as "business as usual" in Corsair, though not one of the characters is anyone you'd like to do business with. Chester Morris plays a college jock whose pampered girl friend has been raised to expect the finer things in life. Unable to support the girl in the manner in which she is accustomed, Morris goes into the lucrative bootlegging business. As Morris gets deeper and deeper into the underworld, he becomes more of a heel. At the end he somewhat surprisingly emerges as the hero--and manages to escape from the cops, as do all the other criminal characters! The role of the rich girl in Corsair was played by Alison Loyd--better known as comedienne Thelma Todd. Ms. Todd was the lady friend of Corsair director Roland West, who felt he could transform Todd into a major dramatic actress by changing her name. By 1932 she was Thelma Todd again, clowning opposite ZaSu Pitts, the Marx Brothers and Laurel & Hardy.