Stanwyck is (as usual) the single woman who loves too well and, in this case, not too wisely. The object of her passion is Adolphe Menjou, a suave district attorney given to drinking and cheating on his disabled wife. Ralph Bellamy is a bellicose city editor out for Menjou's blood, but ultimately it is Stanwyck's role to make the supreme sacrifice-giving up her illegitimate child to the childless wife. Part of the cycle of "confession" films so popular in the early thirties, with its melodrama of preposterous turns, Forbidden stands out from the throng in being acutely observed by Capra in tandem with ace cinematographer Joseph Walker, with marvelous performances by both Stanwyck and Menjou.