Al Christie | Know Thy Wife / 1918

the best man

by Douglas Messerli

 

Walter Graham (screenwriter), Al Christie (director) Know Thy Wife / 1918

 

Despite its rather predictable set-up of the comical cross-dressing situation, Al Christie’s 1918 short film Know Thy Wife succeeds rather admirably, transcending the simple mockery of a person of another gender appearing in drag. In this case the petite Betty (Dorothy Devore) makes for a rather believable boy, Steve, even if she appears so many years younger than “his” best friend, Bob Browning (Earle Rodney) that it's hard to imagine them convincing anyone that Steve is Bob’s chosen best man for the wedding his parents have arranged for him.

       Bob and Betty, however, make a perfectly convincing married couple who were planning to return home to Bob’s family in order to introduce themselves as newlyweds. But before he can even get packed for the trip, Bob’s college roommate hands him a letter he has received in his absence: his parents announcing his immediate marriage to the wealthy, attractive society girl Lillian (Leota Lorraine). Evidently fearing his father’s wrath, Bob cooks up a wacky alternative plan—of the sort at the heart of all such comic farces—that she will accompany him dressed as Steve, his best man.

      The family, Bob’s father (Harry L. Rattenberry) and mother (Lila Leslie) immediately buy into the possibility that such a young looking boy might be their son’s college roommate, the father giving him a hearty welcome, the mother lovingly fussing over the return of her son and the chance to finally meet his college chum.

      Lillian appears almost immediately to look over her husband-to-be who she has evidently not seen for a while, and finds his friend Steve quite attractive, planting a big kiss (from which the camera immediately cuts away) on his cheek. Unlike a similar scene in Julien Eltinge’s Madame Behave where the vicarious “lesbian kissing” almost got out of hand, here the women chastely kiss; but the situation still makes one giggle given the gender confusion.

 

     That comic moment is repeated in reverse once the “boys” have been safely locked away in Bob’s bedroom in order to change clothes and freshen up. The honeymoon couple are clearly dying to kiss and engage in sex, and they rush to reach one another lips at the very moment that Bob’s mother enters the room, she commenting, as they quickly move away from one another, “My you two boys certainly are fond of one another.”

      When a short while later, they have actually removed some of their clothing, Bob’s father is confused when he discovers a girdle in the room, wondering aloud to whom it might belong. Bob claims it as a device to help him from “getting round shoulders.” 

      A fuller comic situation, however, transpires after dinner, when Bob is told that he must accompany Lillian to the theater and Bob’s father declares that he will reveal the delights of their town to Steve.

      The first instance results in a mildly comical sexual reverse, wherein Bob must declare over and over again that he has a headache, arguing that they should return home. The far funnier situation occurs when the father takes Steve to a café where, as in the 1933 German version of Viktor und Viktoria Viktoria as Viktor is forced to down a series of male-sized alcoholic beverages; but even more ridiculously in this film Steve is forced to join in with the father’s flirtations with two ready and willing women, both of whom appear to be totally attracted to the young man.

      The situation gets totally out of hand when Bob and Lillian also show up to have a late night dinner, Bob spotting his own lecherous father attempting to lead his wife into male temptations. Bob pulls his father and Steve, Lillian tagging behind, out of the café to take everyone home.

       A late intrusion again by Bob’s mother finds Steve in the bathroom with Bob trying to undress. But when the mother observes a wig on the floor, explanations suddenly become necessary, as Betty comes out of the “closet,” the couple together revealing their rings and marriage license. If she is momentarily taken aback, the mother quickly comes to terms with the reality, while they force her to swear to still keep the secret, which seems a bit ridiculous unless Bob’s father is truly a monster, of which we have no evidence.

      In any event, at the morning breakfast table they find the mother still in bed, “feeling unwell,” while three remain sitting momentarily in silence. Suddenly Steve excuses himself, and takes up a tray of coffee and rolls to the mother. When the father decides to check in to his whereabouts, he discovers the boy Steve sitting at the side of the bed, his wife gently kissing his cheek.

      The necessary explosion of passion follows, with the seemingly cuckolded master of the house chasing the boy around his wife’s bed as he screams out in anger. Hearing the bruhaha, Bob checks out the situation and observing what is happening finally admits the truth. The father finally is relieved to hear what might have previously sent into a fury. Suddenly all the oddities of his son’s and friend’s visit make sense, and he can still be certain of his wife’s devotion and love. The normative heterosexual reality has been restored.

      But for the audience, the queerness of the situation was far more fun!

 

Los Angeles, January 25, 2022

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (January 2022).