This was found in the New Zealand archive and is now online for all to view. The lead is Elaine Hammerstein who comes across as a feckless, not too sympathetic flapper, who rushes into marriage to escape from her family. However, just because she marries, she is still way too immature and careless and routinely takes off from her husband (at night) to go dancing with friends or out to drinks. He patiently waits for her to come back and keeps hoping that she will turn her life around. After a long bender where she decides to leave him, a traumatic experience then foreshadows for her that changes her destiny forever. Look quickly for Constance Bennett as a sympathetic showgirl who you root for her to encourage the husband to leave his unfaithful and uncaring wife.
4 Reviews
Spousal Abuse
WesternOne18 September 2019
Here is a simple film with a complex, or perhaps confused lesson about feminine behavior towards men. The story first shows how stifling the heroine's (Elaine Hammerstien) home life is with possibly cruel parents with archaic rules that oppress her youthful spirit. (Can't say for sure, as the extant film is short the home footage, but she describes it as such.) She convinces a wealthy young man (Niles Welch) who's taken an interest in her to do something about it, and he elects to marry her (the fool!) before he really knows her. First night married, she makes it pretty clear she likes shopping with his money, but he's not allowed to "consumate", as it were, the marriage. He doesn't even get to neck with her. He meekly accepts it.
Next thing you know, she's going out with a wastrel playboy (Huntley Gordon), even gets caught by Welch in front of his friends- and she goes home with the guy, leaving Welch to get drunk with his pals, singing the cuckold blues.
A little later, she feels a pang of remorse, maybe, and drops in on hubby while he has a female house guest (Constance Bennett). It's entirely innocent, but she feels hurt, for second, but just continues running around with the playboy roué. I won't drop the payoff here, but it seems to me she's very unsympathetic, and it's pretty obvious that Mr. Welch is a spineless sap that deserves what he gets. He's a female-fantasy doormat.
Incidently, the miniatures in this film are so bad, they wouldn't pass muster in a Gamera movie.
More Like Nitwit Youth
boblipton29 May 2019
To get away from her stifling home, Elaine Hammerstein espouses a doctrine similar to 'live fast, die young, and leave a good-looking corpse'..... but remain a good girl. Niles Welch, who loves her, suggests they get married and she goes for the idea.... but when he he asks for his conjugal rights, his bride tells him that the marriage is just for show.
And so it goes on, with Miss Hammerstein playing with fire in the person of Robert Lee Keeling, thinking she'll never get burnt.
In other words, Miss Hammerstein is a spoiled brat. I've seen this done before, and done well, but almost invariably in a comedy. This movie is no comedy. It is offered as a drama of gross coincidences, and I wanted to beat Miss Hammerstein about the head with a 2x4 as she complains about her unseen parents, cheats her husband, and behaves like a nitwit.
This sort of movie, with its normative conclusion, was pretty much a standard of the era. Unhappily, the way the lead character is written and portrayed, she wears out this audience member's goodwill long before she learns her lesson.
And so it goes on, with Miss Hammerstein playing with fire in the person of Robert Lee Keeling, thinking she'll never get burnt.
In other words, Miss Hammerstein is a spoiled brat. I've seen this done before, and done well, but almost invariably in a comedy. This movie is no comedy. It is offered as a drama of gross coincidences, and I wanted to beat Miss Hammerstein about the head with a 2x4 as she complains about her unseen parents, cheats her husband, and behaves like a nitwit.
This sort of movie, with its normative conclusion, was pretty much a standard of the era. Unhappily, the way the lead character is written and portrayed, she wears out this audience member's goodwill long before she learns her lesson.
A Young Constance Bennett Adds Sparkle!!
kidboots4 June 2020
Warning: Spoilers
Once billed as "The Screen's Brightest Star" Elaine Hammerstein was a
protege of Lewis Selznick who acquired her for his Select Pictures after
Clara Kimball Young deserted him to form her own production company.
He thought Elaine, with her impeccable theatrical pedigree was a name
he could exploit. Selznick Pictures were lavish productions and Elaine
proved a popular personality - her flippant attitude to her career came
across in her screen portrayals in movies like "Reckless Youth".
"Youth chained to a house of decay, like a racing motor boat tied to a crumbling old wharf" - hard words indeed as applied to beautiful Alice who feels her spirit is being stifled by the austere family - even the butler spies on her comings and goings!! Just a beautifully restored film although there are missing scenes at the start - you don't meet her parents, even though her mother, played by the lovely Myrtle Stedman, has prominent billing.
Alice makes the break and confides to her friend John that she wants to go to the city and find out what it's like to be young and who cares about paying the piper, to which her friend replies "there'll be a bill all right"!! In order so she will not be forced home they marry but Alice sees it as an emancipation and just gallantry on John's part. She soon gets entangled with Harrison Thornby (Huntley Gordon), a playboy who is called dangerous by his sister. She sails close to the edge - Harrison tells her to call him when she has grown up a bit. Too late, John has already left her for his lodge. He is in a drunken haze and can't quite remember he has a house guest - "Tootles" a tough little flapper and it's Constance Bennett in her first adult role!! She is terrific and gives the movie a big boost - not playing a slinky sophisticate but a girl who "after a two by four hallway off Broadway find's John's cottage a paradise"!! Elaine Hammerstein is a darling as Alice, a spoiled girl who doesn't know what life is all about but Constance's "Tootles" is the character you remember. The ending is a let down!!
"Youth chained to a house of decay, like a racing motor boat tied to a crumbling old wharf" - hard words indeed as applied to beautiful Alice who feels her spirit is being stifled by the austere family - even the butler spies on her comings and goings!! Just a beautifully restored film although there are missing scenes at the start - you don't meet her parents, even though her mother, played by the lovely Myrtle Stedman, has prominent billing.
Alice makes the break and confides to her friend John that she wants to go to the city and find out what it's like to be young and who cares about paying the piper, to which her friend replies "there'll be a bill all right"!! In order so she will not be forced home they marry but Alice sees it as an emancipation and just gallantry on John's part. She soon gets entangled with Harrison Thornby (Huntley Gordon), a playboy who is called dangerous by his sister. She sails close to the edge - Harrison tells her to call him when she has grown up a bit. Too late, John has already left her for his lodge. He is in a drunken haze and can't quite remember he has a house guest - "Tootles" a tough little flapper and it's Constance Bennett in her first adult role!! She is terrific and gives the movie a big boost - not playing a slinky sophisticate but a girl who "after a two by four hallway off Broadway find's John's cottage a paradise"!! Elaine Hammerstein is a darling as Alice, a spoiled girl who doesn't know what life is all about but Constance's "Tootles" is the character you remember. The ending is a let down!!
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