Frank Nugent in the New York Times (1938):

    A glib, implausible, and smartly gowned little drama, as typically Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer as Leo himself, Mannequin...restores Miss Joan Crawford to her throne as queen of the working girls....Miss Crawford, let it be said, meets these several dramatic emergencies in her best manner, which, as you know, is tender, strong, heroic, and regal. For a Hester Street alumnus, she has a Park Avenue way about her, not to mention perfect diction and a curious remoteness from the odor of frankfurters and sauerkraut.... We thought at times that the script writers had the roles reversed, that Mr. Tracy should have been the honest working boy, Miss Crawford the plutocrat....

Howard Barnes in the New York Herald Tribune (1938):

    Joan Crawford is not particularly happy in the role of the slum princess. Try as she may, she is too tony for Hester Street and too much Miss Crawford for the poor girl who made good.

D. Cairns at wordpress.com (2008):

We were so impressed by this film, which despite being from MGM (the Vatican of poshlust), had a genuine Warner Bros grit. Despite the title, Joan C is a fashion model for about five minutes, long enough to cram a parade of “gowns by Adrian” into the proceedings, but mostly she’s struggling to escape the slums, vividly embodied by her family and her no-goodnik boyfriend. I liked Leo Gorcey’s casting here as the kid brother: the unacceptable face of poverty, he’s possibly the vilest character in any Borzage film, although the boyfriend is only superficially better (I also liked that the bf manages a fighter called Swing Magoo).

Best of all, Joan Crawford and Spencer Tracy are just amazing here, empathic and charming and sincere in ways we tend not to find them. Two actors we often don’t admire, giving wholly admirable performances: proof of Borzage’s superior talent, as far as we’re concerned. The fact that Borzage was apparently screwing Crawford maybe helped, I don’t know. Maybe Tracy is mirroring Borzage’s own feelings. At any rate, Tracy’s adoration of his co-star is palpable.

Rating: of 5

I really like this film, not because it´s such a substantial one but because it´s a wonderful example of inferior material sublimated by a strong cast and fine directing.

Joan gives a powerful performance -- unfortunately underestimated by herself -- which turns "out-of-a-fairy-tale" Jessie into a wholebodied character. One of Joan´s fortitudes as an actress was to intertwine strength and vulnerabilty, an ability which changes Jessie´s naive "sticking to her man" into an impressive example of staunchness and endurance. Her "holding on" is likeable because with this layer of strength, under it you know all the time that she is capable of  "doing good" on her own, something she proves later on in the film.

Some scenes are very touching, for instance when she and her husband wait for the train together after she got him out of prison and Jessie tries to reach out for him, to remind him that they still have each other...Joan plays this whole scene at the edge of tears -- very intense! Played by an inferior actress Jessie would be a rather annoying, boring person.

Another thing I like about this film is her teaming with Tracy; they come across very naturally and there are moments which make an almost improvised impression.