10/10
Perfect
2 June 2020
Warning: Spoilers
When I was a kid, I thought Cecil B. DeMille was just the director of big epics, like "The Greatest Show on Earth."

After seeing this and his pre-Code films, I realize he was one of the greatest directors. "The Godless Girl" and "Dynamite" are in the top 1% of the many films I've seen, and so is this.

"Old Wives for New" could be the model for the perfect ro-com. The boy-meets-girl is cute: they both shoot at the same bear, and examining Juliet's gun, Charles says, "If you'd hit him, you'd just make him mad."

The inevitable boy-loses-girl ensues, and finally the boy-gets-girl, a heart-warming scene.. Along the way it's quite funny: We see WW I-era high-tech weight-loss methodology: two technicians roll the client along the floor to reduce her fat. We learn what rich men did to get rid of inconvenient witnesses: give them money and send them on "the next boat to the Orient."

Netflix has a "DeMille package," and this perfect film is one of the silent offerings.
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