AllMovie

Belle Bennett, the unforgettable star of the original Stella Dallas (1926), again suffers nobly through the "mother love" melodrama Reckless Lady. Just to make Bennett feel at home, she is here reunited with her Stella Dallas co-star Lois Moran. Bennett is cast as the prodigal Mrs. Fleming, whose mounting gambling debts oblige her to have an affair with wealthy Russian nobleman Feodor (Lowell Sherman). Mrs. Fleming's husband (James Kirkwood) files for divorce, demanding custody of the couple's daughter Sylvia (Lois Moran). With Sylvia in tow, our heroine flees to Monte Carlo, where she is able to recoup her gambling losses by intelligently playing the gaming tables. Mrs. F. is on the verge of getting back on her feet financially when who should re-enter her life but Feodor, who now makes a play for the virginal Sylvia. When Mrs. Fleming begs him to leave Sylvia alone, he laughs and threatens to tell the girl everything about her mother's checkered past. At her wit's end, Mrs. Fleming loses her money and contemplates suicide, but her ex-husband, who still loves her, shows up in the nick of time to straighten everything out. This high-gloss soap opera was based on a novel by Philip Hamilton Gibbs.