One thing I never understood and that was the popularity of Ramon Novarro into the talking picture age. Sure, he was incredibly handsome but he was a Mexican and Hollywood insisted in casting in sound films where he played everything but Mexicans! Here in "Daybreak" the thickly accented Novarro plays, of all people, an officer in the Austria-Hungarian Imperial Guard!!! Huh?! While having lots of American-accented guys is weird enough but expected since the film was made in the States, here it just leaves you shaking your head. Apparently John Gilbert was originally to have appeared in the film and I assume Louis B. Mayer's famous hatred of the guy is the reason he removed him and replaced him with the inappropriate Novarro.

In this film, Ramon plays Willi--and he and many of his friends are all devil-may-care womanizers. Their attitude seems to be that they should bed as many women as possible and eventually they'll just marry some rich woman...and continue to cat around on her! Nice guys, huh?! But when he seduces a 'nice girl', Laura (Helen Chandler), he seems to inexplicably develop a bit of a conscience...and she inexplicably decides to punish him by becoming a tramp.

This is not a very good film but I am sure it caused a lot of folks to take notice with its plot all about promiscuity and prostitution. However, like many of the sexy Pre-code films, it never exactly comes out and directly says what's taken place--it just strongly implied it and and expects the audience to read between the lines. In addition to the silly casting of Novarro, the film often makes little sense and the ending just left me baffled. A movie that is, at times, very modern about its sexuality yet very old fashioned as well...I can't help but think it might have been better had the writers made the film a bit more hard-edged like "Red-Headed Woman" or "Baby Face"--two of the even more adult Pre-code dramas of the time.