He Fell in Love with His Wife (1916) Film Review - Cinecon 45 Screening

Plot Summary - Silent melodrama about married women Alida (Florence Rockwell) who leads a dull life sitting at home reading magazines and playing the harp - until - one fateful day when who should arrive at the front door, but her husband's wife of ten years (a real battle axe, I must say) and little girl. Bigamy! After her husband shoots the first wife's brother who is trying to strong arm him back to her, Alida escapes into the cold, dark night and ends up in the "poor house". The proprietor of this place has a buddy, James Holcroft (Forrest Stanley), who is a widower trying to run his farm on his own and is having trouble with a string of bad housekeepers. One is a slovenly, lazy old woman who can't cook and is caught throwing a dinner party for her relatives while Holcroft is supposed to be out of town. Another is a middle-aged blab who sits there rambling on to him while her tween-age daughter Jane does all the work. Alida is given a break and asked to become Holcroft's new housekeeper - but she worries that the neighbors will gossip when they see an attractive, younger female attending to his needs. So - and remember, this is 1916, so perhaps this isn't as strange a concept as it seems - she agrees to marry him, in name only, to hold back the gossip (the neighbors end up causing some trouble anyway!). Meanwhile Alida proves herself a great cook and housekeeper - and hey, she's kind of pretty and he's lonely and not bad looking either - they seem like they could be a match! And so - he starts to fall in love with his wife, and she with him. But trouble comes in the form of Alida's first hubby, who returns widowed and tries to force Alida to come back to him - with threats to kill her new man if she doesn't.

Review - Directed by William Desmond Taylor - partly known for his still unsolved murder in 1922. This film is a nicely done, entertaining step back into 1916 - a time period I love to see captured on film - the clothes, the furnishings, the past and it's charms. It is extremely melodramatic (especially the hand to the head, painful reaction Alida has when she finds out her man is a bigamist!), typical of films made in the teen era. I had to say something about the odd, memorable young actress who plays Jane - the character comes back later in the film to work in the house with Alida and actually proves a help in making our couple "a couple". The actress is extremely thin and wiry with large, awkward hands, and almost dizzy - like she's going to fall over (don't know if this was real, or meant to be a comic touch to the film). Near the end she gives a knowing look right into the camera - interesting. I really enjoyed this one (some cute cats in this movie, by the way). Rating - 8.5 to 9/10 stars