Old Wives for New

Old Wives For New retained a special place in the list of Cecil B. DeMille films. He was noted for always having some kind of a bathroom scene in his movies and in Old Wives For New had the first one. DeMille states in his memoirs it was hardly for anything salacious. It involved Elliott Dexter trying to have his early morning shave in a rather badly kept bathroom courtesy of his slovenly wife Sylvia Ashton. There's a great scene also with Ashton eating chocolate candies, a hard thing to resist I can tell you. But in her case it so reminded me of Peg Bundy on the living room couch.

No wonder Dexter just decides to pursue pretty young Florence Vidor. But she herself gets into a jackpot being dragged into the murder of elderly roué Theodore Roberts. Roberts was an old time stage actor best known for playing Moses in the silent version of The Ten Commandments, but he's far from a prophet of God here. Of course it all works out in the end.

Of course it's also dated. Still it provides an interesting look in the mores of America in the years of World War I.

Old Wives for New (1918)

*** (out of 4)

Charles Murdock (Elliott Dexter), a rich oil man, begins to neglect his wife (Sylvia Ashton) because he feels she has let herself go by gaining too much weight and just sitting around the house all day. On a hunting trip with his son he falls for the younger and prettier Juliet (Florence Vidor) but she isn't happy when she learns that Charles is married. As Charles tries to figure out what to do things take a turn for the worse. I was fairly surprised at how entertaining this film was as it still holds up quite well today in a society where looks are judged so harshly. I think the film loses a lot of its punch in the final twenty-minutes do to an over the top plot twist but outside at that this is certainly one of the best films I've seen from this period of DeMille's career. His directing is what really keeps this story moving because it's top-notch. I love the way he tells the story as well as the way he edits everything to build up more drama. On a visual level with get some nice cinematography, which helps a lot, especially during the outdoor hunting scenes. The performances are also very strong with Dexter stealing the film as the husband in love with another woman. He does a very good job in showing his uncomfort with his wife and believe it or not we start to feel for him in his situation. Ashton does a nice job as well even though the screenplay doesn't do her any great justice since several scenes just have her in bed eating cookies or ordering a large breakfast. Vidor is wonderful as the younger woman and really comes across as intelligent when caught up in this mess. DeMille regular Theodore Roberts is also very good in his supporting role. The storyline today is rather politically incorrect but that's what keeps the movie pretty fresh and entertaining. This film has pretty much been forgotten in DeMille's career but that's a shame because it's certainly a good one.

Old Wives for New has been labelled as a departure for DeMille, specifically the point at which he lost his "integrity" to embrace pure commercialism. This is not quite the case. For a start, DeMille had been unashamedly commercial since the day he stepped on to the set of The Squaw Man (his debut feature). What's more this film and the ones after it were still made with intelligence and style.

It is true that this is a particularly sensationalist piece, which came straight after one of DeMille's deepest and most poignant dramas, The Whispering Chorus, so perhaps the perception of Old Wives for New was more one of contrast than a clear break. Changes were indeed taking place in the old DeMille technique around this period, although the process had already begun at the time of The Whispering Chorus. The biggest change was that the films were becoming wordier. Each act is introduced with a lengthy, quasi-philosophical mini-essay. These were the work of DeMille's longtime collaborator (and mistress) Jeanie Macpherson, an excellent dramatic storyteller but not quite the poet she thought she was. The individual scenes are also broken up by far more "speech" titles than are necessary.

Still, DeMille never lost his flair for captivating images, and Macpherson never lost her skill at weaving drama, and there are plenty of touches of brilliance here. Each player is introduced as a pair of hands, their actions revealing their character. DeMille also works harder than ever before to visualise the characters' thoughts – cutting in shots of Florence Vidor when Elliot Dexter is thinking of her, for example.

The acting is so-so here, and to be honest there are not many scenes where the actors actually get the chance to show off their talents. This again is the fault of all those intertitles, plus dozens of inserts which DeMille also overused during this period. An honourable mention however goes to Theodore Roberts, who played dozens of roles for DeMille, from English aristocrats to Moses. He was very versatile so long as he got to ham it up. His highlight in Old Wives for New is a melodramatic murder sequence which sums up everything about the DeMille/Macpherson partnership – straining credibility to breaking point, yet executed with grand theatricality.

Although the wordiness of Old Wives for New does seem like a burden, I should point out that there aren't any more intertitles than the average Hollywood picture from this period – it's just that until recently DeMille had been a master of the long, unbroken take, and had barely used title cards. This change brought him more in line with his contemporaries. At this point in cinema history, the camera still did not move very much, so filmmakers aimed to bring drama to life through editing patterns – inserts, reverse angles and of course titles. The long shot in drama was dying out, and it would be a while before a new generation of directors – people like George Cukor and William Wyler – would revive it in the sound era.

This Demille social drama from 1918 is an early example of one of his themes, a social drama of how the upper classes live. It lacks the opulent decadence of his Gloria Swanson period but is more concerned with telling the story of how Elliott Dexter and Florence Vidor come to fall in love, run into difficulties -- he is married to Sylvia Ashton, who has let herself get fat and unappealing -- and eventually get together. The story is rather complicated and, as usual Teddy Roberts gets to steal the show, particularly in his death scene. Alvin Wyckoff is Demille's cameraman in this one and he comes up with some beautiful compositions that are very subtle -- despite a frame that is invariably filled with detail, you look where Demille wants you to. But the costume design is, alas, overly ornate, distracting and ridiculous, and the leads can't really hold the screen in a convincing fashion.

Demille would do this sort of movie much better and in short order, stripping the story line to essentials and adding in lions, tigers and lots of half-dressed women. Don't get me wrong: I'm pleased to see this early Demille available again, and it fills in an important gap in his filmography, but it is certainly not one of his best works. See it if you have a yen, but don't expect miracles.

During his long silent and talkie career, Herr Cecil B. DeMille had a special fondness for comparing the old and the new, whether great events of humankind (like biblical stories) or local Amerikan happenings dealing with domestic problems of the new 20th society. Ancient or modern, these are universal issues.

"Old Wives For New" (1918) is typical of DeMille's interest in this theme of tension between the old and the new ; in this case, how old-fashioned conservative people try to adapt to the modern society with its rapidly changing shift from ancient values and habits. The film depicts the story of Herr Charles Murdock ( Herr Elliott Dexter ), a rich Amerikan businessman who has a miserable life that he hopes to change; it seems that he has power, money and anything a man could want… except love. He lives under the same luxurious roof with his wife, a careless woman who neglects her marriage duties and two youngsters who don't pay attention to their parents' problems… that is to say, a classical and typical marriage as in the 10's of the last century as the beginning of this new one.

Herr Murdock decides to take a holiday in order to get away from his wife for awhile by going hunting in the mountains with his son. He will meet accidentally and -with the help of a poor bear that died in said meeting- a young girl with whom he falls hopelessly in love. Happiness and hope will shine again in Herr Murdock's life but alas… the dream will fade when Frau Juliet ( Frau Florence Vidor ) discovers that her admirer is a married man.

"Old Wives For New" was one of those many Herr DeMille's silent films in which the Amerikan director depicted the Amerikan high society in modern times and all its complicated domestic problems. These films have a slight undercurrent of criticism of some of those novelties and social habits, intertwined always with sarcastic humour; a good combination to depict the classic war of the sexes including the eternal gap between different generations.

The most interesting aspect of this film is its modernity, a contemporary oeuvre made in 1918 that is perfectly valid today, absolute evidence that matrimony was a terrible invention…

The problems of the couple that brings the marriage to crisis include the monotony and the lack of illusion that a long period of living together produces. Of course, even Adam had problems with Eve in Paradise though he was spared the temptation of adultery. Puritanism complicates life for the female characters in the film; Herr Murdock's old-fashioned wife and Frau Juliet, the modern and independent new woman. Herr DeMille contrasts the two different ways of life and the collision between the old and the new society; however in the end both characters will take advantage of the possibilities modern society offers ( namely, divorce ) and end up happy with the man they liked most.

And now, if you'll allow me, I must temporarily take my leave because this German Count must try to be a modern aristocrat with firmly old-fashioned customs.

Herr Graf Ferdinand Von Galitzien http://ferdinandvongalitzien.blogspot.com/