Love Me and the World Is Mine

Norman Kerry is a dashing Austrian lieutenant, assigned to maneuvers someplace or other. He's staying with a stuffy elderly couple, but the soup is enlivened when their niece, Mary Philbin, shows up. The two fall instantly in love, but are quickly separated by relatives and duties. Several months later, they meet in Vienna, where Miss Philbin is staying with her relative, Betty Compson, a dancer in the corps de ballet of a theater with a cynical view of men. The would-be lovers reconnect, but Kerry is ordered off on maneuvers again; when George Siegmann assaults Miss Philbin, she faints, only to be recued by very wealthy Henry B. Walthall. He and his mother love her, so he proposes and she accepts. Will the field maneuvers ever end? Will Kerry get back in time to find Miss Philbin married, or will Walthall carry out his threat of killing himself if she doesn't marry him? Will the First World War interfere with these important questions?

I'm not a particular fan of Kerry, and Miss Philbin's acting mostly consists of looking miserable in close-up and fainting in medium shots. I do like director E. A. Dupont, and he does what he can with the script; some great sets were built for his first American production. Likewise, I'm glad to see Miss Compson in anything, even supporting the Bowery Boys, so it was good to see her in her few but key scenes. Walthall is always a pleasure, but the schmaltzy script does no one any favors.