Why Change Your Wife? (1920)

A very pre-Titanic Gloria Swanson

Directed by Cecil B. DeMille
Starring Gloria Swanson, Bebe Daniels, Thomas Meighan
Produced by Famous Players-Lasky Company

Robert Gordon lives a frustrating life.  The simple act of shaving is constantly interrupted by his wife Beth.  She won't let him play the music he likes.  She doesn't like his smoking.  She hates his dog.  She doesn't like his drinking and thinks the money spent on his wine cellar could better serve those who are starving.  He tries buying Beth some negligee and meets a fetching young model Sally while making the purchase.  Beth of course is completely embarrassed by the purchase as it offends her moral sensibilities.


One night, he surprises Beth with tickets to a show.  She made alternate plans to host friends to hear Radinoff, a violin player that Robert can't stand.  With Beth refusing to go, Robert attends the show with Sally (who conveniently arrived to drop off a missing piece of the lingerie).  They go back to Sally's place and Robert finds she is a woman who likes his music, who lights his cigarette, who drinks.  At the end of the evening, they kiss.  Robert instantly regrets it and leaves.  Beth however smells perfume on Robert's clothing and the two are soon divorced.

Everything is reversed.  Robert marries Sally, who immediately begins complaining about his dog and his smoking.  She even interrupts his beloved shaving ritual.  Beth learns that she was viewed by others as a prude and begins donning sexier gowns and dresses.  When the couple goes away for the weekend, they find Beth coincidentally there as well.  Robert notices the change in the woman who now even loves dogs.  The two are still obviously in love.  But can fate push them back together?  And where would that leave Sally?

This is a REALLY dated movie that is completely saved by its third act.  In the first act, Robert drinks too much, smokes too much, spends money on frivolous things, and stays out late.  If that sounds like your typical teenager, you are not far off.  Only, the movie treats his vices like a virtue.  Some sample title cards:

Molten lead on the skin is soothing compared to a wife's constant disapproval...

A husband hates to have his soul improved too soon after dinner - particularly when he is thinking how charming his wife will look in her new negligee.

It is the wife's conscience that 'doth make cowards of us all.'

That's right.  Robert is the hero here.  The adulterer, drinking, smoking, spending guy is who we are cheering for.  But more than that.  The wife is denigrated for no great reason throughout the early part of the film.

During the second act, there is more of the same in the relationship between Robert and Sally.  However, add to that the sexy out fits Beth takes to wearing.  They look like tablecloths.  I have seen the pattern on her bathing suit hanging as curtains on dining room windows.  Obviously, this is a product of the times and you get the point when she is surrounded by every stereotypical manly man (including a pilot and a war hero).  For me, it looked a little silly.

The third act turns more melodramatic and the acting really shines.  Robert and Beth, trying to escape one another, end up on the same train from the hotel back to town.  As they walk from the train car, Robert slips on a banana peel (seriously) and suffers a serious head injury.  Beth takes Robert back to her house, where a doctor declares that the head injury has placed a strain on his heart and he cannot be moved for 24 hours.  Sally arrives and of course immediately wants to move her husband.  They fight with Beth ultimately winning by threatening to scar Sally's face with acid.  When Robert has recovered enough to move back with Sally, the wife realizes her husband still loves Beth and tries to throw the acid in her face.  Only the acid was really harmless eye wash.  Beth had punk'd Sally.

With Sally's superficiality revealed, Robert can stay with Beth and enjoy a wife who pours his drinks and lights his cigars (Freud would have something to say about the move from cigarettes) while wearing lingerie.

Swanson is fantastic and completely sells every emotion in the final act.  She is caring and compassionate with the injured Robert.  She turns ferocious in protecting her love from Sally.  The look she shoots Bebe Daniels' Sally as they are fighting is pure rage and hatred.  What could have been an embarrassing end to the film turns into its saving grace.

So the ultimate message is:

And now you know what every husband knows: that a man would rather have his wife for his sweetheart than any other woman: but Ladies: if you would be your husband's sweetheart, you simply must learn when to forget that you're his wife.

Wives are by design to be critical of their husbands.  But by not acting like a wife, they can be great wives.

Or something.

**1/2 out of *****

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