Lulu, a small-town librarian, decides to turn her life around and sets out on a cruise of the Caribbean. On board the ship, she meets Bob, and love blossoms. That is until she discovers that Bob is married and committed to his wife. With elaborate camerawork and editing, Frank Capra explores volatile issues: single parenthood, social mobility, adultery - all this just before Hollywood adopted a moral code that made it difficult to directly and candidly deal with these questions. Stanwyck gives a crushing performance in the role of a woman who disrupts the harmony of the social order, and she does so with a combination of determination and sacrifice.