Too Wise Wives (1921)

Genres - Drama  |   Sub-Genres - Marriage Drama  |   Run Time - 70 min.  |   Countries - United States  |   MPAA Rating - NR
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Synopsis by Bruce Calvert

Too Wise Wives was an independent film produced and directed by prominent woman director Lois Weber. It is a pointed soap opera about the state of marriage and women's roles in society in the early 1920s. Two couples are newly married. Marie (Clarie Windsor) and David Graham (Louis Calhern) are rich. She agonizes about doing everything she can to make her husband happy. This just irritates him to no end. The other couple, Sara Daly (Mona Lisa) and John Daly (Phillips Smalley) are very rich. She married him for his money. He dotes on her all of the time. Since he travels a lot, she gets bored. Also, she used to be David's girlfriend, and she want's David back and works hard to make Marie miserable. Real trouble begins when Marie intercepts a note that Sara sent to David asking him to meet for a secret affair. The cinematography is beautiful -- the movie was obviously filmed on some huge estates in Southern California. At the time this film was released, Cecil B. DeMille was famous for his films that were celebrations of materialism. This film is just the opposite. Director Weber shows how "keeping up with the Joneses" can harm a marriage.

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Keywords

extramarital-affair, marital-problems, marriage, misunderstanding