Eve's Leaves on AllMovie

If Eve's Leaves has the "look" of a Cecil B. DeMille production, it's because DeMille himself functioned as producer. Salty sea captain Robert Edeson tries to keep his daughter Leatrice Joy away from men, but the rambunctious Joy yearns to experience such forbidden pleasures as kissing. When Edeson's ship docks at a Chinese port, both Joy and seaman William Boyd are captured by river bandits. The bandit chieftain hopes to take Joy as his bride, and to secure her compliance he binds Boyd hand-and-foot and prepares to subject the poor boy to torture. Joy takes this opportunity to steal a kiss from the helpless Boyd, whereupon a melodramatic scene becomes a comic one -- just as the stage play upon which this film was based was essentially a comedy. Captain Edeson rescues the lovers in the nick of time, admitting that it was a big mistake to keep his daughter locked up and agreeing to allow her to live her own life from now on.