After a woman gambling in his Reno casino loses money and sues him trying to get it back, Bill Shear suddenly recognizes her as his own daughter, Joanne, someone he has not seen since a long-ago divorce.
Shear remembers what brought him to Nevada in the first place. As a young attorney, then known as William Shayne, he represented silver miners. He met and married Jessie Gibbs and became a father, but when the silver went bust, leaving Reno on the brink of becoming a ghost town, it was he who created a new identity for Reno as a place where unhappily married individuals could get a quick, painless divorce.
Neglecting his own family due to his work, Bill ironically is left alone when Jessie obtains one of those easy divorces, taking their child and leaving him. He is also disbarred and must find another line of work, which is how he came to be in the casino business now. Joanne, moved by her father's story, abandons her lawsuit against him.
The film was based on a story by Ellis St Joseph which RKO bought in December 1938. Robert Sisk was assigned to be the producer[2]
By May 1939 John Twist was writing the script and Richard Dix to star. It was Dix's first film under a new long-term contract with RKO, where the actor had some of his greatest successes, notably Cimarron.[3]
John Farrow was assigned to direct in July 1939.[4] Filming started August 1939.[5]
Reception
Frank Nugent, for The New York Times said: "you can't believe that anything so preposterously unmotivated could ever have taken place even in Reno, which is the title of the picture, incidentally. From beginning to end it is compounded of the sheerest twaddle, and the word "sheerest," in this case, may be taken to mean superlatively transparent."[6]
References
^Richard Jewell and Vernon Harbin, The RKO Story. New Rochelle, New York: Arlington House, 1982. p. 134
.jpg)
