Biographer H. Haughland stated: "Miss Kelly's acting did not excite the critics, or live up to her own expectations." Some critics scoffed at the conclusion of the film in which Cooper's character has to be saved by Kelly's. One critic argued that her pacifist character, killing a man who is about to shoot her husband, was cold and abstract. Alfred Hitchcock described her performance as "rather mousy", and stated that it lacked animation. He said that it was only in her later films that she "really blossomed" and showed her quality.
