Hail the Woman
...seems to be the lesson of this film from almost a century ago. However, there were several themes woven into the script besides this including the virtues of the emancipation of women.

The film involves a family (the Berefords) descended from the Puritans whose joyless father rules the roost with an iron fist so absolutely that his wife has become a frightened shadow of her original self, the son, David, is bullied into becoming a minister just to keep dad happy, and the daughter, Judith, is forced to drop out of high school because dad figures she is going to get married anyways and that more education will just make her a bad wife. And besides, dad has picked out a husband for her anyways, self-righteous buffoon Joe Herd (Vernon Dent), who looks like he has it in him to be every bit the bully Judith's dad is and then some. If you don't remember Vernon Dent, he is probably best known as the exasperated straight man for the Three Stooges in the Columbia shorts that they made.

But all is not as it seems. David has secretly married the town handyman's daughter, Nan. Judith visits the home of an author who shows Judith that woman is on the verge of emancipation in the U.S. and that many doors are open to her. When Joe catches her at the author's house he believes the worst, quickly runs to her dad, and dad has her ejected from their home for being alone with a man and smoking! Oh the horror!. She willingly goes. Meanwhile, though Nan and David had wanted to keep their marriage secret, Nan becomes pregnant, her stepdad finds out, and David's dad pays off the stepdad to send Nan away. David's dad assumes the worst, figures the girl is "a wanton", and David does not dare tell dad about the marriage. Don't get the wrong idea about David. He badly wants to do the right thing, but he is a coward.

In the meantime, years pass, Judith becomes a successful fashion designer, but even when she was just a poor shop girl she'd skip lunches to buy presents for the orphans at "Settlement House". She also runs into Nan in the city, by chance, as she is dying of malnutrition and neglect, and Nan entrusts her baby by David to her, the child's aunt. Judith and a wealthy fellow who doubles for Santa at the orphanage fall in love, and it looks like Judith's happy path will never cross the path of the dysfunctional family she left behind. Well life is what happens when you're making plans. I'll let you see if and how this all works out.

It has some tried and true melodramatic moments in it, but it is an original too. Like I said, I don't think I've ever seen female emancipation and a message on the true spirit of Christ worked into the same film in quite this way before.

Best line: Before Judith leaves home she runs into the author and asks him "What has God got against women?". The author's response: "Maybe it is because they filled the earth with men!". Priceless.,