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).

Roy William Neill | Whirlpool / 1934

in circles

by Douglas Messerli

 

Dorothy Howell and Ethel Hill (screenplay, based on a story by Howard Emmett Rogers), Roy William Neill (director) Whirlpool / 1934

 

Roy William Neill’s 1934 drama, Whirlpool begins in a carnival owned by Buck Rankin (Jack Holt) who quickly turns from a rather shady dealer, whose many carney booths sham the customers out of their money, into a man who, having fallen in love with a young local girl, Helen (Lila Lee), is suddenly ready to sell his business and “go straight”—much to the surprise of his best friend Mac (Allen Jenkins).

   Fate, however, intercedes as, while trying to stop a carnival melee, Buck accidentally kills one of the participants and is sentenced to prison for 20 years. In the meantime, Helen tells him on a prison visit that she is pregnant, refusing his offer to divorce her.

      The prison is surrounded by a deadly whirlpool that has taken the life of many a prisoner who has attempted to escape. And after witnessing just such an event, where a prisoner jumps into the waters to drown, Buck determines to free Helen from the shame of being married to a criminal by forging a letter to her on the warden’s stationery—he works in the warden’s office—informing his wife that he has died while attempting to escape, his body lost to the circling waters.

       The whirlpool comes to symbolize, in many respects, the life in which Buck and all the others who know him are enmeshed, history itself circling back to haunt him and those he loves.

     Released from prison years later, Buck attempts to transform himself into a new man, Duke Sheldon, who with his best carney friend, quickly becomes wealthy through gambling, skills he has honed from his years at the carnival and in prison. Helen, believing herself to be a widow, has remarry, her new husband being a local Judge, Jim Morrison (Willard Robertson). Duke, formerly Buck, is dating a club singer, Thelma (Rita La Roy), but his real relationship is with his friend Mac, a basically comic figure who complains of stomach pains throughout.  

    Their friendship seems far deeper than his relationship with Thelma, and at one point when he seems not to be paying enough attention to her she even accuses both of being “just gentlemen,” presumably hinting they are not “real” men. And Mac himself, at one point when Duke is busy attempting to determine where he should place the roses in his apartment, comments “I’m dying and you’re worried about pansies.”

       Both are also jealous of a new woman who has come into Sheldon’s life, actually, unknown to them, his daughter, Sandy (played by lesbian actor Jean Arthur). Sandy, a news reporter assigned to get an article on Duke Sheldon, who is scheduled to testify on behalf of another gangster, visits his nightclub, almost immediately recognizing her presumably dead father through a photo which her mother has kept on her bureau of her first husband. When she also spots him wearing his wedding ring, she tells him who she is and the two quickly bond, he now realizing that by appearing at the trial he will bring unwanted attention and perhaps reveal Helen as an unintentional bigamist.

       Father and daughter begin to spend time together, dining out and attending sporting events, which also troubles Sandy’s boyfriend Bob (Donald Cook) and worries Helen, without, of course, either of them knowing who the man is. Accordingly, Duke determines not to testify, arguing with the gangster’s lawyer and bringing up even more questions to the press.

       When the lawyer threatens to reveal Duke’s alias and his past, the two struggle, the lawyer’s gun going off and killing him. Duke quickly sends Sandy, Bob, and his friend Mac out the back way before the reporters, having heard the gun, break into the apartment. As they enter, Duke puts the gun to his own head and shoots, keeping the truth of his existence hidden except for Sandy and Mac—neither of who will ever reveal what they knew, Mac to protect the memory of his “friend” and Sandy to protect her mother.

        This film did well at the box office and kickstarted Arthur’s career.

 

Los Angeles, March 8, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (March 2024).