Barry O'Neil | A Woman's Way / 1916 [Difficult to find]

faces from a past

by Douglas Messerli

 

Frances Marion (screenplay, based on a story by Thompson Buchanan), Barry O’Neil (director) A Woman’s Way / 1916 || difficult to find

 

Despite being difficult to obtain this film, Barry O’Neil’s 1916 A Woman’s Way has unfortunately left behind a densely described plot which is arguably more confusing to read than illuminating. The story centers evidently on Marion Livingston (Ethel Clayton), daughter of the boss of the Elsinore coal mines, General Livingston. Evidently the mine is unsafe to work in, so claim the miners led by Jim Saunders. But the young superintendent of the mines Jack Stanton (Pierre LeMay), orders them back to work which leads to a sort of revolution, Marion saving Jack from the mob.

 

     Soon after Jack’s brother, Howard, a young district attorney, comes to visit him and falls in love with Marion. Once married, they move to New York where Howards’s new wife is introduced to society for which she has utterly no interest. Howard, not comprehending why she is so resistant to his world, himself loses interest in his wife, he becoming infatuated with Nina Blakemore (Edith Campbell) who, unknown to him, has long again broke his brother’s heart having refused him to marry a man she believed to be wealthy, only to discover that not only did he not have any money but was 

     Carrying on an affair, Howard and Nina are in an auto accident in which neither of them are hurt, but which still makes the morning newspapers which hint of a pending divorce of the Stantons.

      Marion meanwhile, still totally in love with Howard, determines to outwit the “mysterious” woman named by the newspapers by inviting Nina as the honored guest to a dinner party. Other guests include Jack and his wife, Myrna; the man who had planned to marry Nina for her wealth, Marney; another guest who she once dated, Whitney; and her husband’s brother-in-law, Morris, who also carried on an affair with Nina before he married.

       Not only does Marion completely outshine Nina at the party, but faced with numerous of her for lovers, becomes completely abashed.

       When Howard begins to discern the extent of Nina’s past relationships. confronted as he is by the indignant male guests who believe he has brought them together as a hoax, he becomes agitated, made worse by the fact that reporters break into their house, threatening to reveal that Nina was the mysterious woman in the car when the accident occurred.

       If you’ve followed me so far, you realize that the soap-operaish plot has now become quite serious, threatening the reputation of not only Howard and his wife, but nearly all the men at the table. To resolve it Marion feigns a close and affectionate friendship between Nina and herself, which sends the reporters away, evidently, as the movie promotional describes, “satisfied.”

       I can only presume that the satisfaction must have something to do with Marion convincing the press that she and Nina not only have a friendly female relationship but something closer a lesbian affair, which is why this work has appeared on LGBTQ lists. One might presume that she sealed her female friendship with a kiss. Being unable to see this film, I can only imagine what it might have portrayed.

       In any event, when the guests finally all leave, Marion and Howard reconcile and continue their marriage. 

 

Los Angeles, August 28, 2022

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (August 2022).