Ann Vickers (1933)

A social worker (Irene Dunne) falls in love with a soldier (Bruce Cabot) and becomes pregnant but it soon becomes clear, he doesn't want to get married. The child "dies" and she becomes a leader in prison reform before engaging in an affair with a bribe taking married judge (Walter Huston) and has a child by him. Based on the novel by Sinclair Lewis and directed by John Cromwell (OF HUMAN BONDAGE). This pre-code film is pretty daring for its time. Dunne's unapologetic relationship with a married man and having his child would have been condemned once the Hays code came into existence. Still, the movie is evasive on how she "lost" her first baby. It can be read as either an abortion (as it was in the book) or a miscarriage. Normally, I can't abide Dunne's weepies (I much prefer her comedies) but her Ann Vickers is a strong quasi feminist that takes the punches life gives her and makes her even stronger. She feels no shame at the unconventionality of her romantic life in a judgmental society. Not a great movie by any means but certainly one of great interest. With Edna May Oliver, Conrad Nagel, Jane Darwell, J. Carrol Naish, Gertrude Michael and Rafaella Ottiano.