Whirlpool

Whirlpool is a 1934 drama film directed by Roy William Neill and starring Jack Holt and Jean Arthur. The screenplay concerns Buck Rankin (Holt), a carnival owner who is convicted of manslaughter for the death of a man killed in a fight.

Buck Rankin (Jack Holt) is a shady carnival promoter. After meeting and quickly falling in love with Helen (Lila Lee), he decides to go straight and sell the carnival. However, a fight over a con game causes a melee at the carnival, during which Rankin accidentally kills a man. He is convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to twenty years behind bars. Eight months later, Helen reveals to him in prison that she is about to have his child and refuses his request that she divorce him.

For the good of his wife and child, Rankin decides to fake his own death. After seeing fellow prisoner Farley (Ward Bond) leap to his death in the roiling waters and deadly whirlpool surrounding the prison, Rankin, who works in the Warden's office, forges a letter to Helen saying that he has died trying to escape and that his body was never found.

Many years later, Rankin is released from prison. He adopts the alias, Duke Sheldon, and he and his carnival partner Mac (Allen Jenkins) quickly become wealthy via the illicit skills that Rankin learned while incarcerated—including owning a nightclub. In the meantime, Helen has married Judge Jim Morrison (Willard Robertson). Her and Rankin's daughter, Sandra (Jean Arthur) has become a newspaper reporter who is engaged to marry fellow reporter Bob Andrews {Donald Cook). Of course, she knows nothing of her father's existence.

Sandra is assigned to do a story on Duke and recognizes him as her father from an old photograph her mother has kept. She reveals herself to him as his daughter and he is overjoyed to see her. He has kept a low profile all these years, but his intention to testify on behalf of a fellow gangster threatens to bring him unwanted publicity. He realizes that this publicity will result in the humiliation of Helen, who is unintentionally guilty of bigamy, because they were never truly divorced.

In the end, he kills the gangster's lawyer, who had been pressuring him to testify and was going to tell reporters of his sordid past. He then turns the gun on himself and commits suicide as Duke Sheldon while reporters are clamoring at his door. The secret of his past life is thus hidden forever.