Miss Lulu Bett

Lulu Bett and her mother live with Lulu's sister Ina and her husband Dwight Deacon, along with the Deacon's two daughters. Lulu cooks, cleans, and is treated like a doormat by the family. When Deacon's brother Ninian arrives in town, he takes an interest in Lulu. Dwight, Ina, Lulu and Ninian go out for a night on the town, during which Lulu and Ninian jokingly exchange wedding vows over dinner. But Dwight, being a Justice of the Peace, tells them that their civil ceremony is legal, and that they are indeed married. The couple decide to try out marriage, but Lulu soon discovers Ninian was married before, and his wife ran off. She returns home, and again is treated as a second-class citizen. Neil Cornish, the town's schoolteacher, begins to fall for her. Lulu talks her young niece out of eloping. In so doing, Lulu slowly begins to assert herself.

This is a simple but engaging film, with a charming performance by Wilson. In the early scenes, she appears plain, unattractive, and timid. You keep waiting for her to explode at all the ingrates around here. As the film progresses, she blossoms, and by the climax, it is a hoot watching her manhandle Theodore Roberts:

Speaking of Roberts, he chomps his ever-present cigar, which makes me think the only film in which he doesn't do this is "The Ten Commandments" ... unless I missed that scene on Mt. Sinai where Moses has a smoke. Sills isn't in the film very much, and the final scene with him and Wilson is extremely corny.

The film was based upon a novel of the same name, by Zona Gale. Gale adapted her novel into a play, earning her the 1921 Pulitzer Prize for drama, the first woman to receive such an award. The film follows the novel pretty faithfully, although in the book, Neil Cornish is a piano salesman and not a teacher. Also, the novel's ending is more true to life, and not the silly ending displayed in the film.

Miss Lulu Bett is on my list of top ten silent films. Classic must-see.

This film documents the life of single women doomed to be servants of their families until they are able to escape by marriage. Coming out in 1921, it shows the ways women's lives were constrained within the home. Interesting to see how the privileged wife and the privileged mother treat the single woman like a slave, treating her no better than the man of the house. Their attitude is so condescending and cruel. They show no compassion.

Unfortunately, these attitudes are not completely outdated today nearly 100 years later.

Wlliam deMille produced and directed Miss Lulu Bett, a film of extraordinary conviction and insight. It was then often the custom for unmarried women to lodge with family; thus we discover Miss Lulu in a boring Midwestern town, an exploited household drudge for her sister and her overbearing brother-in-law.

All I have to say about this film is that if you have the ability to see it with a soundtrack, or better yet a live organ, do that. Unfortunately for me, the copy I saw was without sound of any kind which made the viewing experience tedious. The rating would be higher, probably, except that it is hard to judge a film I thought was difficult to enjoy.

We may never know exactly how good or bad a director William C. de Mille was. Only a handful of his films survive and only one of the surviving films, "Miss Lulu Bett", is revived with any regularity. But if a director is going to be known by one film, he or she could do much worse than "Miss Lulu Bett."

The film is a fine example of film-making on a small scale. Little touches remind audiences of the simple beauties of the moving image art form. There is the image of the lonesome and shy Lulu (played by Lois Wilson)unfurling her hair on a staircase. There is the image of Lulu and her lover Neil Cornish (Milton Stills) talking under a bower strewn with flowers. These images of delicate beauty show what carefully chosen props and settings can do to make a film with a modest budget look classy.

The story is interesting and it is not as old fashioned as some on-line reviewers have suggested. Lulu is not physically abused or held in captivity. She is abused psychologically by her overbearing brother-in-law, and her captivity is a matter of economics: she simply has no money to live on her own. The belittling of women and economic inequalities are still important issues for women.

Some people may object to certain stylistic qualities of "Miss Lulu Bett". The film has a fast enough pace, but much of the story is told through title cards. I presume that the overuse of language is a hold-over from literature: "Miss Lulu Bett" was originally a popular stage play and novel. These title cards, however, are pithy and straight-forward; they never seem to interfere with the pace of the film in any way. Film critics who ignore the device in silent films may want to watch "Miss Lulu Bett" as an example of title cards used well.

In all, "Miss Lulu Bett" is a fine drama about a female survivor of abuse. The artistry is touching and low-key, but captivating all the same. It is truly a fine work from William C. de Mille, a director whose career is now almost erased from film history.

Lois Wilson stars in the title role of Miss Lulu Bett a rather mousy and shy young woman who lives with the Deacon family who basically treat her like a doormat. She just takes it and takes it, think Peggy Cass as Gooch in Auntie Mame or Shelley Winters as Alice Trippe in A Place In The Sun. She has no salary for her domestic work, she's simply given room and board with the Deacon Family run by the tyrannical Theodore Roberts as the father.

When Roberts black sheep brother Clarence Burton comes for a visit he's taken with her and she sees a chance for happiness and takes it. But he may or may not be slightly married and Wilson finds that out after she's run away.

Miss Lulu Bett is directed by William C. DeMille the older brother of Cecil who actually was at one time considered to be a leading Broadway playwright in the Victorian/Edwardian theater era. His kind of morality dramas were going out of style so he like his brother moved to Hollywood and the new motion picture industry. Unlike his brother Bill DeMille was given to more homespun and intimate style films with no gaudy spectacle or emphasis on sex dramas in flashback sequences in decadent times.

Theodore Roberts who was a member in good standing in Cecil B. DeMille's stock company steals the film as the arrogant pompous head of the Deacon family. At all costs preserve appearances for the family name. A far cry from his most famous part as Moses in the silent version of The Ten Commandments.

Miss Lulu Bett is an interesting study of family life on the cusp of Roaring Twenties America.