Walter Fairchild's (Conrad Nagel)'s first wife has died some time ago, and he is planning to remarry Florence (Lila Lee). Walter's housekeeper Mrs. Rhode (Mary Carr) warns him against remarriage, but also says she doesn't think his first marriage was happy either. What? She doesn't think the guy is entitled to any happiness? But that's not the only odd thing going on in this episode of Erratic Reaction Theater. It's really a smorgasbord of strange reactions and antiquated ideas.
Walter has a son by his first wife, and as soon as he and Florence are married he ships Junior off to boarding school in Switzerland....for a year! Because he thinks he and Florence deserve a real honeymoon. Oh, and he tells his second wife when still courting her that he never loved the first wife. Hmmm. Florence had better take care of her health or he could be saying that about her when courting the third wife. And so on.
Florence becomes pregnant almost immediately after marrying Walter, and apparently this is still the age of women being confined during late pregnancy, because when someone comes calling for her, the maid says that of course Mrs. Fairchild doesn't go out anymore nor does she see anyone given her condition!
The producton is very statically staged, very much like a play. Outisde a table full of men at a business banquet there are only five players with very many lines at all.
I'd recommend this for the film history buff. The two leads - Conrad Nagel and Lila Lee - were silent players, and their acting style still shows some holdover traits from the silent era.
Do take note of Mary Carr, who plays the maid. She entered films in 1916 at the age of 42, and acted in the first all talking feature film "Lights of New York". She died in 1973 at the age of 99.
