Illicit

A glum and unmemorable weepie, dredged up by Warners as a vehicle for newly emerging name Barbara Stanwyck, the movie recounts the love affair and subsequent marriage of Stanwyck and James Rennie. Married life, however, spells the death of romance and the onset of boredom and infidelity. Archie Mayo directs, with Ricardo Cortez, Charles Butterworth, and ever-reliable Joan Blondell in support. The future great star of melodrama does what she can with the material, which was given a controversial makeover two years later to become Ex-Lady, for another up-and-coming melodrama queen, Bette Davis.