Idle Wives

7 reelsCountryUnited StatesLanguageSilent (English intertitles)

Idle Wives is a 1916 American silent drama film co-directed by Lois Weber and Phillips Smalley.^[1] The film was released by Universal Film Manufacturing Company. Surviving reels of the film are preserved at the Library of Congress. The film was released on DVD/Blu-ray in 2018.^[2]

Plot

Characters go to the movies to watch Life's Mirror, a film where they see their own lives turned into dramas. A shop girl dating a young man against her parents' wishes watches her onscreen counterpart become pregnant; an impoverished family watches as a family onscreen lives beyond their means; and an unfaithful husband watches as his onscreen wife leaves him and returns to social work. After the film characters have learned their lessons: the shop girl apologizes to her parents; the family decides to live within its means; and the wealthy man leaves his mistress and returns to his wife.

Cast

• Lois Weber as Anne
• Phillips Smalley as John Wall
• Mary MacLaren as Molly
• Edwin Hearn as Richard
• Seymour Hastings as Billy Shane
• Countess Du Cello as Wall's Mother
• Pauline Aster as Alberta
• Cecilia Matthews as Molly's Mother
• Ben F. Wilson as Mr. Jamison
• Maude George as Mrs. Jamison
• Neva Gerber as Mary Wells
• Charles Perley as Tough Burns

References

Further reading

• Slide, Anthony (1996). Lois Weber: The Director Who Lost Her Way in History. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. p. 37. ISBN 0313299455.
• Stamp, Shelley (2015). Lois Weber in Early Hollywood. Oakland, CA: University of California Press. pp. 105–106. ISBN 978-0520284463.
• Routt, Bill (2001). Lois Weber, or the exigency of writing.

External links

• Idle Wives on National Film Preservation Foundation cite with a brief clip and film notes by film historian Shelley Stamp
• Idle Wives entry in American Film Institute catalog
• Idle Wives at IMDb
• Synopsis at AllMovie