Review of The Red Kimono

I just saw this film as part of TCM's Women Pioneers in Film series. I have heard a lot about Dorothy Davenport Reid's moral crusade, and was expecting a dry and preachy kind of film. However, the film hardly ever bogs down into preachiness and has enough dramatic momentum to move things along at a good clip. Priscilla Bonner, whom I had only seen in "It", does an excellent job as Gabrielle--we feel sympathy for her plight but she never bogs down in pathos.