Dan Navarro's Movie Reviews

Cecil B. DeMille is often remembered as an envelope-pusher: a director who could sneak sex appeal into his movies without riling the censors of his day. Films such as Male and Female (1919), Why Change your Wife? (1920), and the precode talkies Madam Satan (1930) and The Sign of the Cross (1932) all have moments of salacious content.

But, when he made The Affairs of Anatol (1921), DeMille took the formula and turned it on its head. The film's genesis was a one-act play, Anatol, first published in 1892 by the Austrian modernist Arthur Schnitzler. Many, if not most, of Schnitzler's works, attack what he regarded as dubious sexual conventions. (An example: one of Schnitzler's works was the origin for the 1999 film Eyes Wide Shut.)

But, while Anatol was the tale of a married hedonist, cynical, sexually active, and indiscreet about his affairs, DeMille and his scenarist Jeanie MacPherson changed the main character (Wallace Reid) to a happily married man whose only indiscretion is his penchant for helping damsels-in-distress... especially if they are young and pretty. The viewer is left free to make of that what he will. The word "Affairs"—added by DeMille to the film's title—is a ribnudge.

As usual in DeMille films of this era, the leading lady (in this case, DeMille's favorite, Gloria Swanson) was the stylish clotheshorse, displaying dozens of elegant frocks during the picture. Miss Swanson plays Vivian, the faithful wife of Anatol ("Tony"), who always seems to have his mind set on helping out some girl he's met.

Anatol and Vivian and their good friend Max (Elliott Dexter) spend an evening at a night spot, the elegant "Green Fan." There, Anatol chances to spot his old grade-school girlfriend Emilie (Wanda Hawley). Emilie is as friendly as ever, but Anatol soon realizes she is the mistress of an old lecher (Theodore Roberts, in a hilarious performance). Determined to "save" Emilie from her life of sin and corruption, Anatol takes her and sets her up in a lavish furnished apartment, leaving his wife in the custody of Max. What Tony is too blind to realize is that Emilie is a gold digger, and she has chosen this life. But hey, if life is now offering her something better (and younger), she'll go along with it. Why not?

Before long, Anatol learns the error of his ways and returns to Vivian. Soon, though, he runs afoul of Annie, a farmer's wife who has embezzled the funds entrusted to her husband by their church. Anatol tries to help her too, but gets his wallet stolen for his pains.

Next, he ventures into the dungeon-like lair of "the wickedest woman in New York," one Satan Synne (Bebe Daniels, who makes a meal of her role). Sure enough, he finds in Miss Synne yet another candidate for Anatol-style salvation. But she turns out to be no devil, but a devoted housewife who's just trying to make enough money to buy a needed operation for her critically ill husband. Will Tony never learn? Now he's determined to go back to his wife and rid himself of his boy scout complex. But will she take him back?

In trying to "cleanse" the story of Anatol and turn him from a cheating husband into a well-meaning chump, DeMille made a film that passed muster with the censors, but still left open a window of possible adultery for those inclined to believe that. Modern ads promoting the sale of videotapes and DVDs of The Affairs of Anatol still seem to suggest it is the story of a philandering husband.

Somewhere, Cecil B. DeMille is laughing.