moving to hollywood, she found employment with fox films and was cast in the film version of dawn powell's play "walking down broadway". this was the first sound film by erich von stroheim. he shared both screenwriting and directing credits and regarded mallory as his discovery. the play told the story of a young unmarried woman involved in a love triangle who becomes pregnant. the finished film, however, strongly suggested a lesbian relationship between mallory's character and the character played by zasu pitts. other sexual themes involving the character played by james dunn were considered too daring. fox executives brought in director alfred l. werker to drastically cut von stroheim's version and to shoot additional scenes. the film was finally released under the new title "hello, sister!" (1933) with little promotion and was not a success. von stroheim's original version was neither copyrighted nor released, and is considered lost.