Don't Change Your Husband

The film "Don't Change Your Husband" was a romantic comedy that caught my eye and kept me interested. Being a female i'm more attracted to romantic films, that was apart of my interest in this film. Even though this film was a silent film it gave so much meaning and you could really understand what each character was feeling and how what their actions were. The actors played a really good part on their facial expressions and their body language. I wasn't sure how i was going to react to the silent film era but with each character really giving meaning through their facial and body expressions, it really pulled me in.

I also thought it was similar to todays life, even though it was produced in 1919, you could relate it to todays time, most women want the good looking man and in the end it doesn't turn out to be what you expected and you want what you did have at one point.

This movie was certainly an interesting one to watch. The storyline is one that I can see happening even in today's modern era. All the characters had personality traits that travel through the ages.

For this movie I did not expect how beautiful the setting would be. All the different sculptures, paintings, furniture, rooms and decorations kept your mind thinking and alive as the movie played on. The costumes were beautiful and it was something you don't see often in movies today.

Overall, I would recommend this movie. It was certainly one that kept my interest although it was a bit boring in the beginning. The plot is something that can happen today and it can teach us all a lesson about how to deal with our lives.

I find early De Mille films to be wildly inconsistent ranging from astonishing (The Cheat) to terrible (The Squaw Man). Thus I wasn't expecting much, but ending up really enjoying this one. I hadn't seen many early Gloria Swanson silents, so it was interesting to see her in the picture that really made her. It's easy to see the appeal even if she doesn't get much to do, De Mille just loads her up in fancy clothes and films her. Fortunately she has the charisma to make her stand out.

Here she plays Leila Porter, the wife of successful but disinterested banker and onion-eater James Denby Porter (Elliott Dexter). Feeling neglected by her husband, Leila leaves him for the charming Schuyler Van Sutphen (Lew Cody), only to discover that her former husband's onion breath is far less of a problem than having an unfaithful and incompetent roustabout for a husband. James undergoes a transformation, including giving up his beloved onions, and is determined to win Leila back. It all makes for a fun and occasionally astute exploration of marital woes. Its strength is that it maintains its light touch rather than endeavoring towards heavy-handedness, and at 80 minutes it breezes by.

Cecil B. DeMille directed a series of domestic comedy-dramas in the late teens and early 20s. He found his perfect leading lady for these provocative pieces in Gloria Swanson. In Don't Change Your Husband, Swanson plays a bored housewife whose wealthy businessman husband (Elliott Dexter) pays more attention to work than to her. She is chased by a handsome roue (Lew Cody) until she relents and divorces the boring husband for the new lover.

Things soon become familiar and Swanson discovers the new husband is as neglectful as the first. To make matters worse she discovers Cody has a woman on the side (Julia Faye). After several confrontations and convenient meetings, things are resolved.

This was a smash hit in 1919 and helped make Gloria Swanson a major star. Although she was only 20 when she filmed this she is very good as the maybe foolish wife. She looks great and wears some stunning gowns.

There is one memorable scene that is 100% DeMille in which Cody is luring Swanson with promises of wealth, pleasure, and love. As he coos to her she imagines the scenes. Pleasure is a fantastic scene of Swanson in a spidery hammock swinging out over a pool while people dance around. Wealth is a scene in which Swanson is gowned like a Babylonian queen as servants bring her chests of jewels, which shes tosses aside. Love is a scene in which she is a wood nymph making love in a forest glade with a Pan-like character (Ted Shawn). Pure hokum but very entertaining, and Swanson looks great.

Dexter is very good as the bland husband who shaves off his moustache and starts to work out in order to win his wife back. Cody is also good as the fake charmer who is a liar and cheat. Faye is funny as the bitchy other woman--named Toodles no less--who gets hers. Sylvia Ashton plays Mrs. Huckney. Ted Shawn was married to Ruth St. Denis and together they were groundbreaking and influential modern dancers (of the Denishawn School).

Swanson impresses me more every time I see her. She seems to have been such a natural actress and yet there is a way that the camera captures her expressive face that is just mesmerizing. She's a joy to watch.

Very entertaining film with lots of color tints in varying scenes to keep things lively. And a lot of the furnishings are back in style 86 years later.

The film "Don't Change Your Husband" Starring Gloria Swanson and Directed by award winning director Cecil Demille was overall a pretty fun film with twists thrown in there to keep things interesting. The film revolves around Leila Porter (Gloria Swanson's character) and how she basically got sick of her husband James resulting in divorce, she thought that once she was a away from him she would be much happier with another man but thing's didn't turn out the way she would have liked them to. She moves on to marry another man and sure enough things didn't go as exactly planned when she realizes that he's much worse than her original husband - hence the title "Don't Change Your Husband." It's just a fun film with a somewhat shallow plot but fun nonetheless, the story line keeps you interested and although it is a silent film it's still worth seeing at least once, not that there's anything wrong with a good silent film. Great Actors and Great Story line.