A House Is Not a Home

Polly Adler is a high-class madam. Shelley Winters looks back on her life, beginning as a poor and naïve young Polish immigrant who works in a sweatshop. After she is sexually assaulted by her boss, for which her housemates blame her, she is forced to move out. Having lost her job and lodgings, a friend brings her to a restaurant where she is introduced to Frank Costigan, Robert Taylor, a bootlegger who lets her live in a plush apartment he uses for his affair with a married woman. When this relationship fails, Polly fixes him up with an attractive girlfriend, whom he takes to the apartment that night. After Polly returns, the woman splits the money Frank has given her with Polly.

Frank approves of Polly’s attractive girlfriends and starts paying her to have the ladies meet socially with his friends. Soon Polly is the madam of a high-class brothel, paying off police while hosting meetings and brokering cash transactions between political figures and gangsters. At a club, she sees singer and trumpeter Casey Booth, Ralph Taeger, who earlier in the story had protected her against the man who raped her. She recommends Casey to a producer of musicals, and after he gets a job on a new musical, he contacts her and asks him to dinner. She has genuine feelings for Casey, but at first does not reveal her true occupation to him. Eventually Casey proposes marriage, so Polly finally confesses what she does for a living. He is horrified. Later, he turns up at her house drunk and loud, and is ejected by Costigan’s men.

Costigan becomes the top enforcer for mob boss Cesar Romero as Lucky Luciano and backs Polly’s business, which ends up on Park Avenue offering high-class call girls. When the district attorney begins to move in on Luciano accusing him of involvement with brothels, it transpires the brother of one of the key members of the organisation is shaking down the sex trade. The two brothers fight, and both are shot dead. Her friend phones Polly and asks her to Vito’s for a special party. This is a ruse: Casey meets her again and asks for forgiveness. When she tells him Casey has asked her to marry him, Costigan tells her she can’t marry and that this will destroy Casey. Polly protests but Costigan has changed her mind. On the phone, she tearfully tells Casey it is for the best if they part. She hangs up and returns to the party.

Last Updated: October 05, 2025 at 11:58