#27: Why Change Your Wife?

Starring: Gloria Swanson, Thomas Meighan, Bebe Daniels
Dir: Cecil B. DeMille (1920)

Warning you in advance: Cutest movie EVER. Gloria Swanson is Beth, the uptight and bookish wife of a curly-haired man who likes dogs and is named Robert. (Robert is not that cute, let's just get that out of the way.)

Robert likes to do fun things like listen to foxtrots and smoke cigars buy fancy undies for his wife. Beth likes to enjoy an evening of classical music and then put on her frumpy glasses (no!) and go to bed with a book (NO!!). She also HATES to wear undies in front of her husband... she puts clothes on underneath them. Needless to say, Robert and Beth are having no fun.
Next thing you know, some little hussy from his past is stalking the curly-haired hubby and inviting him to her apartment to have drinks and listen to foxtrots (his weakness) and next thing you know THEY HAVE KISSED. (Bebe Daniels a.k.a. Sally is the hussy on the left.)

Blah blah blah Beth finds out, she and Robert get a divorce, and she is all wound up about it and miserable. Robert is shamed into marrying the hussy (because KISSES MAKE BABIES). Then Beth overhears some little snitches in a dressing room saying how it's about time Robert found a wife that was more fun anyway. (Apparently this kind of thing was put in newspapers back in the day - the mind boggles!) So, rather than getting all furious-and-a-half and telling off the beezies, Beth decides that they are right and she immediately buys a bunch of exciting new clothes, stating the first principal of emancipated women everywhere: "I'll take this and six more; and make them sleeveless, backless, transparent, indecent - go the limit!"

Shortly after, Robert and Beth are reunited when Beth goes to vacation at the hotel where Robert and Sally are honeymooning. Robert is immediately stricken by Beth's new look (read: visible ankles) and the spark is rekindled. Apparently the fact that Robert was a cheater is not a problem with Beth anymore. She also likes dogs now. Can't they just be in love again?? But ROBERT IS MARRIED!

Anyway it goes on from there and gets very action-packed toward the end (someone gets hospitalized for slipping on a banana peel, someone threatens someone else with a bottle of acid, someone wears a caped swimsuit and knee-high gladiator sandals... to lunch), but to save myself from both spoiling all the thrilling action and making this thing too damn long, everything works out and they are super cute.

Bad: There's a creepy violinist. I try to avoid discussing him because he is SO TRAUMATIZING. His hands are huge and his tummy is weird and he wears the most offensive swimming ensemble I have ever seen in my entire life, bar none, AND THEN TRIES TO HIT ON PEOPLE WHILE WEARING IT. Seriously. I would screencap it but this browser would die from shame.

Good: Everything!! Gloria Swanson is sooooooooooooo cute in this, I want to die. I can't believe it is the same Gloria Swanson from Beyond the Rocks, she is just a million times more endearing and wonderful. All the titles are cute and snarky, all the costumes are insanely horrible in a kind of entertaining way, you get little gems like this thrown around too --

and so forth. DAMN THOSE SHREWISH WIVES AND THEIR BOOKS. This is like every ugly duckling story every told, except better, and AWESOME.

Seriously.

Do it. Even if Robert isn't cute, it is so worth it. Honestly if he was any cuter this movie would probably freak out and break the scales of awesome anyway, and then I'd have to develop a new ranking system... boo.

Stars: 4 of 5