His Own Law

Frenchman Rowland V. Lee is in a bar trying to mix a complicated cocktail, when Hobart Bosworth gets into a fight with him and then treats him to a drink. When that bar closes, they continue their toot, and the next morning, they are earning some money digging a ditch, when Hobart's partner catches up with him and tells him he has to go supervise the construction project up north, so he takes his new friend, who's also an engineer, along. Lee falls in love with Jean Calhoun, and they're about to get married, but he has to head off to join the French army (the First World War), so that's delayed. The problem is that they celebrated the marriage without a license, she's expecting, and Lee is reported dead. So Bosworth marries her and raises Lee's son as his own. Guess who shows up, having spent three years in a German POW camp?

It's a mature and mostly amiable buddy comedy, with a funny opening. That turns into a melodramatic ending. Bosworth gives a great performance, reminding me of the sort of role that Wallace Beery played in the 1930s, but without the dumb coyness he brought to his roles. Bosworth plays a smart, amiable, larger-than-life character, able to throw a punch or cuddle a puppy as the occasion calls for it, making it clear why his career extended through his death, albeit in supporting roles. Lee, who came from an acting family, appeared in one more movie, then moved behind the screen, becoming a commercially successful director who got chosen for a lot of prestige projects. He retired from the movies and lived another thirty years. Miss Calhoun appeared in a dozen and a half movies from 1918 through 1927, married, and popped up in uncredited roles a couple of decades later.