Drifting Souls (1932)

A rather complicated but well-made little Poverty Row thriller, Drifting Souls features silent screen star Lois Wilson as Linda Lawrence, a woman lawyer whose father needs 5,000 dollars for an operation. A dutiful daughter, Linda places a newspaper ad promising marriage to anyone who will pay 5,000 dollars. Meanwhile, a joyriding Joe Robson (Theodore von Eltz) kills a road worker, a hit-and-run he unscrupulously pins on his intoxicated passenger, socialite Ted Merritt (Gene Gowling). Needing an alibi, Ted agrees to marry Linda, but is arrested for the hit-and-run. Hedging his bets, Joe secures Ted a crooked lawyer (Edmund Breese), but he quits and Linda takes over the defense. Enterprising reporter "Scoop" (Raymond Hatton) recovers Greta (Shirley Grey), Joe's accomplice, in the nick of time, and the girl is made to testify in court that it was Joe and not Ted who drove the car that fateful night. Having fallen in love during the trial, Ted and Linda decide to exchange their marriage of convenience for the real thing.