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Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Just perfect...

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

This film starts off strong enough, with Barbara Stanwyck playing James Rennie's lover and some charming early scenes. In a bit of a twist, she's the one not interested in marriage, as she believes it will destroy their happiness. It's clearly a pre-Code (and modern!) premise, and the baby-faced Stanwyck is adorable as she exclaims 'And we're both a riot in our underwear!' while talking about things they have in common. There are also some cute moments provided by their friend, a toper (Charles Butterworth), and when Stanwyck and Rennie are talking on the phone together. The film is not quite as good as it could have been, though, as the plot is predictable (they get married, and sure enough, they both cheat), and the conflicting emotions are not reflected well enough in any of the cast's acting. You have to give it credit for the premise though, and it's worth watching for Stanwyck and Butterworth.

Boring, talky Pre-Coder with Barbara Stanwyck and James Rennie as a young couple happily living in sin. Babs isn't a fan of marriage, you see. Well they're eventually pressured into marrying and things between them go south. Will these two kids make it work? If you have the patience of Job, watch it and find out. Everybody else drink lots of caffeine first. It's a very creaky early talkie that feels more like a stage play. Charles "Cap'n Crunch" Butterworth plays a drunk and Joan Blondell brightens things up whenever she's on screen, which isn't enough. Stanwyck fans might want to check it out for one of her earliest roles.

Illicit (1931) * (out of 4) Incredibly bad pre-code from Warner features Barbara Stanwyck in her first role with the studio. In the film she plays Anne, a free spirit who doesn't want to marry the man she loves (James Rennie) because she fears it might ruin their relationship but soon she's getting pressure to do so. ILLICIT is without question one of the worst films I've seen from this era of Hollywood. In fact, it's so incredibly bad that I think Stanwyck should be thankful that studios made so many movies back in the day because if this type of film was made today I think it would have ruined her career. At least back then they had one film after another being released so people could forget this poor thing. I think the biggest problem going for the film is the fact that it simply doesn't know when to shut up. This here is yet another early talkie, which is ruined because the screenwriter simply didn't know how to do anything than throw out worthless dialogue that after a while will make the viewer contemplate suicide. I must admit that I thought the film was nearly half over when I checked to see how long I had been watching it and in terror I noticed it was just ten-minutes. The entire opening bit with Stanwyck and Rennie discussing marriage is so drawn out that you can't help but thing the run of dialogue could have been handled in just a few lines. The pre-code elements really aren't naughty enough to draw much interest and the cast too is mostly wasted. Stanwyck is good in her part but the screenplay really doesn't give her much to do. Rennie is somewhat bland but Ricardo Cortez is here for some fun as is Joan Blondell and Charles Butterworth who of course steals the film as the lovable drunk. ILLICIT is poorly directed with some ugly cinematography and it's clearly the worst film I've seen Stanwyck in.

First time Stanwwyck captivated me. Attractive, cute, sensitive, intelligent. A master performance raising an overall OK movie to a different level. I fell in love with her character as an actress and as a young woman. Ann is a beautiful young lady full of sensitivity, common sense and intelligence. The movie reveals a conflict of feelings between two people triggered by their love toward each other. You would say it shows two characters with a behavior ahead of its time, but scratching the surface of the "mores" of the time, it really portraits a common conflict of love, in which the characters act in a mostly mature and civilized manner -I would add she way more mature than him, and this kind of acting does not have anything to do with the "mores" of the times. Quite the opposite,human beings have behaved maturely through history regardless of the prevailing social norms. Finally I would like to add that now I understand how Barbara Stanwick gained her reputation as a remarkable actress during her youth.