In Frank Lloyd's morality tale, there's a price to pay for those who rush into marriage—and their children bear the brunt of it. In 1927, according to the US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, the divorce rate in the United States ranged from 2.1 to 2.4%. That number has grown to nearly 15% in 2021. We now know how detrimental irreconcilable differences can be, but divorce was more of an aberration in the 1920s.
Working from Hope Loring's adaptation of Owen Johnson's novel, Lloyd opens on an American orphanage in Paris where Kitty Flanders' newly-divorced mother (future gossip columnist Hedda Hopper) unceremoniously dumps her, presumably to go off and find a sixth husband. The other girls ignore Kitty (Joyce Coad) until she meets kindhearted Jean Waddington (Yvonne Pelletier), who takes her under her wing.
One afternoon, Ted Larrabee (Marion Feducha), a child of divorce from Kitty's old neighborhood, climbs over the orphanage wall to hide from his father's obnoxious friends and falls for Jean at first glance—she calls him "Teddy Bear" and he calls her "Pigtails." Lloyd then catches up with the three as especially attractive adults: Kitty (Clara Bow, cast against type as a tragic figure) has become a debutante, Jean (Esther Ralston, warm and sympathetic) has become a socialite, and Ted (Gary Cooper, a handsome sourpuss) has become an engineer.
Despite Kitty’s lifelong devotion, Ted has his sights set on marrying Jean. Prince Vico (Einar Hanson), meanwhile, has his sights set on marrying Kitty, except his title hides a diminishing fortune, and Mrs. Flanders has encouraged her daughter to marry into money. When Ted proposes to Jean, she declines, because the timing isn’t right. After he and Kitty attend a boozy office party, he wakes to find that they got hitched. He's horrified, not least when Jean writes to say she's changed her mind, except it's too late--Ted doesn't believe in divorce.
As the years pass, the couple has a daughter, but they have grown no closer. Ted remains in love with Jean, and Kitty feels lousy about the whole thing. When she tells Vico she's ready to leave Ted so they can get married, he sniffs that his church "doesn't permit divorce." Concerned that her daughter will end up just as lost and alone as she once was, Kitty makes a fateful decision that will impact everyone's fortunes. There's nothing subtle about any of this, but Lloyd treats all of his characters with respect, even if Jean is a little too good to be true. Paramount, however, wasn't pleased with his work and brought in Josef von Sternberg for reshoots.
Costume designer and Sternberg associate Travis Banton also deserves credit for the exquisite outfits, particularly the ladies’ whisper-thin, hand-beaded dresses. Ironically, the finished product serves as an argument in favor of divorce over a marriage of misery. The extra feature, TCM's 1999 documentary Clara Bow: Discovering the “It” Girl, features narration from Courtney Love and covers Bow's difficult childhood, flings with Cooper and Victor Fleming, and post-Hollywood life. Recommended.