East Lynne (1921)

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Synopsis by Janiss Garza

East Lynne, the most famous of all melodramas, was filmed many times (including once with screen vamp Theda Bara!), and this time around it was brought up to modern times (or 1921, the year it was released), and its location changed from England to America. Otherwise the plot is pretty much the same: Isabel Vane (Mabel Ballin) believes her husband, Archibald Carlyle (Edward Earle) is romantically involved with Barbara Hare (Gladys Coburn). He isn't -- he's trying to save Barbara's brother, Richard (Gilbert Rooney), from a murder conviction. But Isabel doesn't know this, so she leaves him, and her estate, East Lynne, and goes to Quebec with Francis Levison (Henry G. Sell). Isabel has nothing but misfortune in Quebec -- Levison (who, it turns out, committed the murder Hare was believed guilty of) leaves her and her child dies. So she decides to go back to East Lynne and beg Archibald's forgiveness. But the train bringing her home wrecks and she is seriously injured. Her husband hears she has died and marries Barbara. But Isabel shows up on his doorstep at East Lynne, and she dies there. Star Mabel Ballin was the wife of the film's director Hugo Ballin.