This is a forgotten precode from Paramount that is very good. Clive Brook plays a man (George Boyd) with a good career, lovely wife (Vivienne Osborne as Mary Boyd), and two great kids. He enters into an affair and decides he wants a divorce. Mary won't give him one, assuming that he'll have his "husband's holiday", tire of the affair, and come back. She doesn't want to wind up like her mother who divorced her dad over an affair and has ended up bitter and alone.
George seems to be settling into life as it is - living with the mistress and visiting his kids whenever he wants. His wife has made it easy for him, much to the chagrin of the mistress, who wants marriage. You have to wonder, why do all of these precode homewreckers want marriage as security when they got the husband by home wrecking in the first place? If it was easy for the guy to stray the first time it will be all the easier the second time. But I digress.
So the mistress goes to the wife (Mary) and tells her "the big lie" that she is going to have a baby. No dice. Mary stands firm and says that she doesn't see why she and her two children should have their lives disrupted over the mistress or her baby, and orders her out of the house. What changes her mind? When she discovers her own sister is in love with a married man, she begins to have compassion for the alternative point of view and tells George he can have his divorce. Now George is generous in his terms, but not so generous in his heart when one of his best friends comes to him and tells him that he intends to court and marry Mary after the divorce is final. How does this all work out? Watch and find out.
It was interesting to see Vivienne Osborne in the role of a normal person for once, after watching "Two Seconds" and "Supernatural". Charles Ruggles is great here as Mary's brother-in-law who does not play the drunk here for a change - Paramount should have let him play it sober more often! Clive Brook was always good in his silent and sound roles. I just don't think audiences were prepared to deal with that aristocratic British voice of his after seeing him in so many silent film roles.
