Illicit

Dir. Archie Mayo

79 Minutes

USA

1931

Starring: Barbara Stanwyck, James Rennie, Ricardo Cortez, Natalie Moorhead, Charles Butterworth, Joan Blondell

***1/2/*****

Continuing my Stanwyck pre-code journey with the first of her three Archie Mayo collaborations. Here she plays Anne Vincent, in a committed relationship with James Rennie's Dick Ives but one she refuses to consummate in marriage, believing that it would tarnish the love. Despite being happy, the couple finds themselves pressured into the institution and find their troubles increase when romantic rivals for each are introduced into the fold.

Based on a play by Harvey F. Thew, Illicit does have long talky stretches with many scenes going beyond their point and function, all of which I imagine would work better on the stage. It is also notable for being co-adapted by Robert Riskin (in what seems to be his first screen credit), and there are some Riskin touches in the dialogue that give the many (many) two-hander scenes a little pop. As noted in thinking about Ever in My Heart, Mayo is not a particularly good stylist, and the film is very content to present the material quite visually bland (interestingly, he made my favorite of his films in the same year with the very unusual and partially Expressionist Svengali, which does have a similar foundation to what he seems interested in but is a notch above the rest in being quite. . . weird). But this becomes my favorite of the three Stanwyck films primarily in the material, which I find quite interesting and even quite progressive. The title gives the impression of the film being a bit more sordid than what is in the final result, but is applied more to the "outside" perception of this relationship than it is to the actual content of it, and the film lures the viewer in with the promise of something more unsavory almost intentionally. And it works.

August 17th, 2019