The Return of Carol Deane

The Return of Carol Deane is a 1938 British melodrama, directed by Arthur B. Woods and starring Bebe Daniels. The film is adapted from the story The House on 56th Street by Joseph Santley and spans the time period from the 1910s to the 1930s. It was made at Teddington Studios by the British subsidiary of Warner Brothers.

Carol goes on trial for murder and Lord Robert is summoned as a character witness, but is killed in action before the trial begins. Carol is found not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter, and is sentenced to a lengthy term of imprisonment. Her son grows up knowing nothing of his mother or her crime, and on her release in the late 1920s Carol relocates to New York. She meets Englishman Francis ScottVaughan Wyndham Goldie and becomes involved in his shady gambling businesses. Ten years later the pair return to England to set up a similar establishment in London. On the opening evening she recognises one of the punters as her son Peter Coke, now married and whose photographs she has seen in newspapers. He has the air of a compulsive gambler, and Carol engineers proceedings to prevent him from losing large sums of money in wagers. She takes him under her wing and helps him repair his relationship with his wife, who had been aghast to discover his gambling habits. Carol never reveals that she is his mother, and soon contact between them is lost again.

Source: Wikipedia