Ann, a young woman with outrageously advanced ideas, has been living in sin with Dick, her lover, because of her conviction that marriage would destroy their love; but social pressure ends up paying off, so Ann and Dick get married.
Недозволенное, Mulher Sem Algemas, Ilícito
USANR
USA
Freewheeling Anne Vincent (Barbara Stanwyck) doesn’t believe in marriage. She thinks that getting married will kill romance and ultimately lead to divorce, so she intends to live life on her own terms. Anne has recently broken up with her boyfriend Price Baines (Ricardo Cortez) and taken up with Dick Ives II (James Rennie.) Dick in turn has recently broken up with his girlfriend Margie True (Natalie Moorhead.) After living together out of wedlock for a while Dick and Anne eventually marry. But it doesn’t take long before Anne’s fears start to come true. Meanwhile Price and Margie are waiting in the wings…
Illicit was Barbara Stanwyck’s third starring role and she’s already a pro. Her performance is easy and captivating.…
“I want our love to be like it used to be.”
Illicit doesn’t have much going for it. Ann Vincent (Barbara Stanwyck) and Dick Ives II (James Rennie) are happy living in sin. Then old man Ives (Claude Gillingwater) insists they get married. Then they aren’t so happy. Then they separate, get back together, separate again—and by that point I was thinking only of another separation. Stanwyck has a few spunky moments, but Rennie is a terrible bore. Charles Butterworth is mildly amusing as their dipso friend. As another friend, Joan Blondell is strikingly young. As Ann’s old beau, Ricardo Cortez pops up now and then. That’s about it.
“I don’t mind telling you that this is a terrible disappointment…
“Gosh, you do look good.”
Act 1
Babs wakes up like this, unkempt hair down to her backside, fully cottagecore, or, in the words of husband Dick Ives (James Rennie, 💤): “you look exactly like a peasant.”
Anne Vincent is a “a good ol’ hunk of woman” that has been helping to topple Dick’s honor by spending “comical weekends” and unmarried nights with this rumor-and-innuendo-shy rich boy. The two are guilted into marriage by Dick’s dad and soon enough—the lingerie bridal shower to be exact—ex-boyfriend and big game (women) hunter Ricardo Cortez shows up to offer hesitant congratulations (see Act 2). Flash forward: after a year of wedded bliss, the Dick and Anne romance is already getting cold, and ex-gf…
“No more theories, Anne?”
“What have theories to do with love?”
I have mixed feelings. I was really into the ahead of its time commentary on what marriage can do to a relationship, but to see Barbara’s strong willed character have to surrender her unconventional ideas on love time and time again was disappointing. But like, it was 1931.
Yet another in the disapppointingly long line of pre-Code pictures in a which a wife who dares to desire independence is punished by the world, then weeps with relief at being forgiven by her philandering husband, pledging tearfully to conform forevermore. (To make things worse, Barbara Stanwyck’s explorer suitor was, like, a billion times more interesting than her whiny, unfaithful spouse.)
Very stagey, but Stanwyck is Stanwyck. Can't complain too much.
A very talky early talkie, primitive in execution, that nevertheless has an interesting enough premise to just about sustain it, as young couple Dick (James Rennie) and Anne (Barbara Stanwyck) talk (and talk and talk) about the virtues of living in sin, as opposed to married life.
Co-written by Robert Riskin, who penned most of Capra's best films, it's creaky as hell, replete with comic interludes that no longer make any sense - most of them featuring Charles Butterworth - and has a viewpoint that wobbles throughout and then falls over at the end, but it's sporadically insightful, and unusually daring in the topics it takes on.
There's also a scene in which Stanwyck and Natalie Moorhead argue about who loves Dick the most. Huh-huh.
“Duckie” (Joan Blondell) under-utilised but focus was entirely on Barbara Stanwyck’s first limelight and stellar performance. She is just so damn sexy. James Rennie plays catchup and if he would go for Natalie Moorhead, let him go. Claude Gillingwater is wonderful patriarch but with rather conventional wisdom. Quite interesting dialectic on long-term intimacy in relationships. Of course ending in conventional moralising but I’m not convinced that Stanwyck’s character would ever be making the concessions fully. This couple's main problem may be however they simply have too much money.
Another pre-Coder that is positively obsessed with how to reconcile the old-fashioned institution of marriage with the thrilling possibilities of modern life. It really feels like all was up for grabs in America in the early 30s until the Production Code stifled any thinking outside the box.
Barbara Stanwyck gets talked into marriage by James Rennie even though she's pretty certain it's not for her - and whaddya know, problems arise post-honeymoon. Stanwyck is excellent, a fresh attitude and a fresh face right at the beginning of her career, and the long scene at the start in which she flirts with Rennie and outlines her reasons for not marrying display an invigorating naturalness.
Some scenes are dry and lumpy -…
I've definitey sat all the way through worse Barbara Stanwyck movies! At least this is pre-code so it's got some things to say about not losing your identity in a relationship, AND Joan Blondell! But man, every time you think you've hit the rock bottom in terms of love interests they're casting opposite Babs, think again. Definitely makes HER look better, and the fact she can make you give a shit regardless speaks to her as an actress. But I can't imagine there not being more charming actors around in 1931??? Someone like Cary Grant must've really broken the mold when he came up.
"Don't say you don't like the pussyfooting... I love it" - Ann Vincent,
Marriage is a prison that destroys people... except for my marriage, that one is good.
she gwyneth paltrowed too close to the sun for 1931 😔
