D. W. Griffith | Taming a Husband / 1910

further possibilities

by Douglas Messerli

 

Stanner E.V. Taylor (screenplay), D. W. Griffith (director) Taming a Husband / 1910

 

Outwardly, D. W. Griffith’s 1910 comedy Taming a Husband seems to be a rather standard tale of tricksterism in its intentions to make a rather inattentive husband jealous of his scorned wife. At least Lady Margaret (Elinor Kershaw) perceives it that way, believing that her husband’s love has grown cold and he himself indifferent. Certainly, the short scenarios director Griffith shows us demonstrate that not only is this husband (the handsome Arthur V. Johnson) oblivious to his wife’s subtle pleas for attention, but is far more interested in his business affairs and, in particular, his relations with his close male friends.

     The story has been told hundreds of times since the birth of cinema, and was one of the favorite film subjects of the 1950s and early ‘60s, when women were, as in this 18th or 19th century period story, delimited in their housebound activities and choice of friends. Strangely, however, Lady Margaret has another possibility that the poor housewives of the “cold war” angst hadn’t thought about.

      To resolve her situation Margaret calls up her best friend Lady Clarissa (Dorothy Bernard) who appears to be without marital ties and spends her time fencing with her teacher and servants, winning many a duel. Bernard plays her with an athleticism which reads of not only independence, but a kind of “I don’t give a damn” attitude and a derision of men that hints at not only an early feminist stance but possibly of a lesbian sensibility. She puts on her cloak and rides over to Margaret’s home the minute she gets her letter of distress.

       Together, the two hatch a plot wherein Clarissa will dress up like a man, befriend Margaret’s husband, and pay an inordinate amount of attention to Margaret upon his regular visits. Indeed, their plot plays play out nicely, the husband greets the good-looking young man with enthusiasm, the young man showing great deference to his friend’s wife. The imposter is asked to drink and smoke to their new friendship, reminding one a bit of what Viktoria as Viktor had later to go through in Reinhold Schünzel’s 1933 film.

       In fact, as the mock relationship between the two women develops, it almost appears that Clarissa, in her continued gentle embracement and kisses, is enjoying the fantasy a bit more than playing simply an actor. She mocks the husband, refuses to leave when he demands, and even accepts his challenge to a duel, neither Margaret nor he evidently aware that she might, in fact, win such a battle.

       Throughout the entire time Clarissa is “wooing” Margaret, Griffith oddly parades pairs of heterosexual couples through the room. It is somewhat difficult to even know what to make of this. Is he showing us the normality of the majority of relationships as opposed to Margaret and Clarissa’s “pretend” coupling? Is Margaret’s husband entertaining large dinner parties throughout the period when the two, the male pretender and his wife are engaging in their mock relationship? Might Margaret, in fact, have found plenty of conversation and friendship within the confines of her own home had she simply been a better hostess and not so concentrated all of her energies of the parody played out for her mate? Perhaps it is Margaret who has become indifferent to the affairs of her husband, focused as she is on her friend Clarissa’s sexual enactments. 

      “Sir” Clarissa’s sexual attentions to Margaret are noted even by the husband’s best friends, who are to be his seconds in the duel. What they observed, they claim, was so brazen and blatant that the man deserves simply to be killed outright as opposed to the courtlier opportunity to defend one’s honor.

      Finally, when the trio come to get the scoundrel, Clarissa realizes she is in trouble and, for a moment or two, she attempts to hide; but suddenly she seems to recall that she is, in fact, really a woman, reverting—almost as a statement of defeat—to her feminine attire.

      The moment the husband sees his foe in a dress he realizes what has happened, and asks Margaret’s forgiveness, showing her all the attention she has been craving. The trick has worked, and heterosexual orthodoxy has been restored.

       We can only wonder, however, what the relationship will now be like between the two women. Has Margaret truly enjoyed the special attentions her friend has provided; is Clarissa really ready to give up her seeming sexual ministrations to the beautiful Margaret? The husband may have been tamed only by arousing the emotional potentials of his wife.

 

Los Angeles, June 21, 2023

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (June 2023).