Miriam Hopkins...

...was really great in this movie. With very little overacting, and a lot of genuineness. They had a certain style of acting in the early sound years, often filled with heavy histrionic leftovers from the silent era, so I am always very pleasantly surprised when I discover something as smooth as Hopkins' portrayal of Temple Drake... But actually the whole movie was very interestingly played, directed and scripted, almost everything looked very human and believable (except maybe for the ethical and dramatic excesses in the end). The Story of Temple Drake was, as a whole, quite an unexpected thing - but the major responsible for this was its main heroine.

Words, Mr. Sullivan, are precious things. And they are not to be tempered with!