Forbidden
Directed by Frank Capra
Written by Jo Swerling from a story by Frank Capra
1932/US
Columbia Pictures
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Crackle streaming
Lulu: I know what I’m saying! You’re poison to me! Poison! I’m sorry I ever met you! But, I’m not old! You’re not the only man in the world! I don’t have to stop living! Not for you! Not for anybody!
Barbara Stanwyck plays a martyr to love. Adolphe Menjou plays her long-time lover. Surprisingly, this melodrama works despite the bad casting and treacle.
Lula (Stanwyck) is a “plain” (!) small town spinster librarian. Her heart is full of romance, though, and she takes her life savings to go on a vacation. Havana seems a very romantic place and she books a cruise that will take her there. She must have had a full savings account because when she gets on the boat she is dressed to the nines and looks gorgeous.
Things don’t go well for the first two days on board when Lula finds she must dine all alone. After she flees the second dinner in shame, she returns to her room only to find a tuxedoed man passed out drunk on her bed. This is Bob (Adolphe Menjou). Despite this unfortunate introduction, Bob and Lula flirt and when he sobers up, he asks her to dine with him. They fall madly in love. Lula is giddy with it. When they get home Lula takes a job with a city newspaper as a reference librarian.
Holland, a reporter at the newspaper, is sweet on Lula. They frequently exchange flirty banter but she refuses to go out with him. Instead, she is keeping an apartment and making dinners for Bob. On one memorable night, the couple are about to share a meal when Holland calls with a proposal for Lula. She asks Bob what she should do. He reveals he has no right to advise her because he gave her a fake name and is married to an invalid he can never divorce. Lula who expected the evening to be a celebration of the baby she is carrying, throws him out.
A couple of years go by. Lula is a homebody raising Bob’s child alone. Finally the lovers meet by chance and reconcile. Bob is the District Attorney and has ambitions for the mayor’s job. The two decide the best thing to do is for Bob and his wife to adopt the girl, without informing the wife in advance. Lula will be her governess. What could possibly go wrong? Lula again chews Bob out but takes him back. Holland, who is still after Lula, has become city editor. He has a deep dislike for Bob, the politician, and tries to dig up some scandal that will derail his election campaign for Governor. The melodrama builds until the unbelievable conclusion.
This tearjerker was pretty darned good once you suspend your disbelief that anyone would think of Stanwyck as plain. The other problem, which I forgot once I got into the story, is the fact that Menjou was probably born looking sixty and seems an unlikely romantic lead. It was particularly nice to see Bellamy in something other than a rebound financee role. This is definitely pre-Code, what with adultery, illegitimacy, etc. I like the feisty, outspoken Stanwyck and thought she should have dumped Bob permanently after he revealed his marriage. But then they would not have been able to milk the noble suffering of Lula.
Photo montage
