The Woman Disputed

In Norma Talmadge's last silent movie, she plays a street walker. A man comes to her apartment, talks about a sense of peace and pulls out a gun. Norma phones his nephew as he shoots himself. Austrian officer Gilbert Roland, and his best friend, Russian officer Arnold Kent show up. She explains what happened and when the police arrive, they alibi her. Norma is thrown out of the apartment, so the two men take her under their wings, get her a job, and when they are both ordered off to fight the First World War, she agrees to marry Roland.

However, the Russians invade, and Norma and various stuffy people try to flee. They are all to be shot, but Kent is the commanding officer and says he will not shoot anyone if Norma will be his. She refuses in a fury, but all the stuffy people now urge her to do it, to save them.

If the story sounds familiar, it's because it's from a story by Guy de Maupassant. It's not the only time it was turned into a movie. Kenji Mizoguchi directed the story as OYUKI THE VIRGIN (1935).

Co-director Henry King and Sam Taylor direct this movie with lots of well-shot battle scenes, and lots of Miss Talmadge doing her usual dramatic turns with lots of zest. She is wonderful, even though I have issues with her apparently restored virginity. Still, that's not the point of the story. It's the hypocrisy of so-called good people that de Maupassant was concerned with, people who preach redemption and then forbid it, who are ready to sacrifice another's virtue for their own interest.

This being a starring vehicle for Miss Talmadge, those people are thrust into the background, and the story suffers. Even so, the three lead actors give it their all, and deliver.