Wikisource:WikiProject Film/Intertitles from GeoCities/Why Change Your Wife

Why Change Your Wife 1 Angels are often dead husbands, but husbands are seldom live angels. Wives know this but they can't seem to get used to it.

2 Thus we meet, early one morning, a certain husband with no more faults than most men and the usual amount of matrimonial resignation to fate.

Robert Gordon, . . . . . . Thomas Meighan.

3 Beth, his wife, whose virtues are her only vices and who willingly gave up her husband's liberty when she married him -

Gloria Swanson.

4 Marriage, like genius, is an infinite capacity for taking pains.

5 Molten lead poured on the skin is soothing compared to a wife's constant disapproval - but when she actually con- demns the wine cellar - Oh well - What's the use?

6 "How can you spend money for this, Robert, when you think of the starving millions in Europe?"

7 "My dear, we give con- stantly to help the starving millions. Why do you in- sist that everything I do for our happiness rob some one else?"

8 "Robert, I've told you before, that dog must not come in the house!"

9 Enter now the dressing room of a little lady who works as a model in the "Maison Chic". Legally a widow, and optically a pippin is Sally Clark.

. . . . . . Bebe Daniels.

10 Pondering her husband's eternal problem - the strange difference between his wife and the girl he married, Robert de- cides that a gift may restore the long lost smile to Beth's face - but with the bad luck of a mar- ried man he picks the shop where Sally displays gowns - and Sally.

11 "I want a present for a lady - you know - something that'll make her happy."

12 "Take a look out front at the curly headed baby buying lingerie."

13 "Why he comes from my town upstate. I was crazy about him when my mother was punch- ing a typewriter in his father's law office."

14 "Does the heart go with the dress?"

15 "Don't you just adore curly hair?"

16 A husband hates to have his soul improved too soon after dinner - particularly when he is thinking how charming his wife will look in her new negligee.

17 "Robert, you promised not to smoke so much. Remember, dear, it's for your own good."

18 "Robert, why will you play that awful, physical music? Try to cultivate your taste, dear!"

19 "Put on what you find in the box, honey, and then come back to me."

20 It is the wife's conscience that "doth make cowards of us all".

21 "Do you know, somehow in the shop, it looked - thinner."

22 "My dearest, since time began dress has played it's part in love, and woman has worn it to delight her mate."

23 "Robert, you've been drinking!"

24 "Do you expect me to share your Oriental ideas? Do you want your wife to lure you like a - a - Oh why didn't you marry a Turk?"

25 A wife's idea of relaxation for her husband is to let him share whatever en- tertainment she enjoys.

26 "I've got seats for the 'Follies', dear. Let's dine downtown and have a little party - just us two."

27 "Evelyn just sent a note saying that she's bringing Radinoff over after dinner to play his Adagio in E Minor."

28 "Then I'll dine at the club - I'm tired of hearing that wired-haired foreigner tor- ture a fiddle."

29 "This belongs to the negligee you bought. It was left out by mistake."

30 "I'm sorry - but I've no one to go with."

31 "I'd hate to sit next to a vacant seat."

32 When a husband has had his faults thoroughly and constantly explained to him at home, he listens more easily to an old friend who tells him how wonderful he is. So after the theatre Robert finds it hard to leave Sally at her door.

33 "Just one little teeny sandwich won't take a minute."

34 Music is to many women a peculiar combination of Romance and Religion. The musician seems to make celestial love to her soul. She feels a spiritual embrace which wrongs no one - Hence the great social suc- cess of Radinoff.

Theodore Kosloff.

35 "Here's to those who love us   If we only cared. Here's to those whom we'd love    If we only - dared."

36 As the hurricane sweeps all before it, so does the madness of a moment some- times conquer - even love.

37 As the shadow is blackest in the brightest sunlight, so is remorse the deepest in a strong man's soul.

38 "Where have you been?"

39 "A friend went with me."

40 "I'm sorry I was cross and didn't come home, dear. Forgive me and let's not quarrel any more - ever."

41 "I don't use vulgar perfume and I don't wear indecent clothes. As you've evidently found someone who does, I won't stand between you and your ideal."

42 "You needn't leave the house to get rid of me. If you won't live with me any more I'll go - in the morning."

43 So when morning comes, at last, merciless virtue proves stronger than love - and wrecks a home.

44 "Don't think you can come to me with another woman's kisses on your lips. I'm through!"

45 "All right - I'll take my share of the blame - but how about yours? All you do to make me happy is to improve my mind. All you talk about is the virtues I haven't got and the faults I have. Well - I married a woman, not a governess! I want to live in a home, not a convent! I want a sweetheart, not a judge!"

46 On the day the divorce is granted Beth's Aunt Kate prescribes a new gown as the most soothing remedy to apply to a broken heart.

47 "When a girl can wear a bathing suit like this - it's her duty to do so."

48 "It's better not to wear your wedding ring like this, dear. Put it away - and forget."

49 "I'm going to give my whole life to charity, Aunt Kate. I hate clothes - and men."

50 "Oh, look! Mrs. Robert Gordon has gotten her divorce."

51 "No wonder she lost him. She just wouldn't play with him. Then she dressed as if she were his aunt not his wife. But I'm terribly sorry for her - poor thing!"

52 "They pity me, do they?" Pity me because I've been fool enough to think a man wants his wife modest and decent. All right: I'm still young, thank God, and I'll play their game with them. I dress like an old woman, do I? Well, you watch me - from now on.

53 "I'll take this and six more; and make them sleeveless, backless, transparent, indecent - go the limit."

54 "Please don't be lonely - somebody does care!"

55 Matrimony, like a dip in the sea, first stimulates, then chills. But once out of the water the call of the ocean lures the bather to another plunge.

56 And for the second time Robert learns that wives will be wives.

57 "Bobbles, kiss um poor little finner."

58 "I've worked hard for years and haven't had any real fun - and I just love big hotels. I think you might take me."

59 "Don't 'e love 'is little wiff?"

60 "I do love you, dear - but I'm shaving."

61 Two who already regret Robert's marriage.

62 "That awful dog of yours is trying to kill my poor Toodles again! This time he's got to go!"

63 There is a mysterious force which draws together those who constantly think of each other. Fools call it "coincidence"; but be that as it may, Sally takes her husband right to the hotel where Beth is staying.

64 Beth's new bathing suit is designed to prove that she doesn't dress like any- body's aunt.

65 "I'm here with my - with Mrs. Gordon and - the dog."

66 "Isn't he a darling? You know, 'the more I see of men, the better I like dogs'."

67 "If you'd like to have him I wish you'd take him - Mrs. Gordon is a little - nervous about dogs."

68 "Radinoff wanted a little holiday before his season starts so he begged Aunt Kate and me to spend a few days here."

69 When a woman meets her ex-hus- band she realizes all she has lost; When she meets his wife she realizes all he has lost.

70 "Mrs. Gordon - this is - er - Mrs. Gordon."

71 "What is that woman doing with our dog?"

72 The summer night - with its thousand tinted lights; when throbbing music and the scent of flowers calls youth to romance.

73 "I left my fan up- stairs, dear; will you get it for me?"

74 "I'm in an awful fix. I can't find a maid to fasten my gown."

75 "I wonder what's keeping Beth up- stairs?"

76 "You used to like per- fume - but I never had sense enough to use it."

77 "My dear, you yourself taught me to be faithful to one woman at a time."

78 "I'm not going down again; my head's just splitting, and the music makes it worse."

79 "Dance with me, Radinoff, make me forget.

80 "If you cared any- thing about me, you'd stay here with me."

81 When two people have passed a sleepless night fighting vain regret, it is not surprising if each decides that, even though it makes the heart grow fonder, absence is certainly much safer.

82 "You're running away because you still love Robert."

83 "I've just had a phone call from the office, dear, and I must run right back to town."

84 But how perfectly use- less it is to run away from Fate.

85 If this were fiction the train would be wrecked or they would have a terrible auto- mobile accident on leaving the station. But in real life, if it isn't a woman, it's generally a brick or a banana peel that changes a man's destiny.

86 "I'll take him home with me. He - he is my husband."

87 Danger, the great revealer of human hearts, makes many a woman claim the man she loves - heedless of consequence.

88 "Your husband has met with an accident."

89 "This is Mrs. Gordon speaking. I've brought him to my home. You'd better come at once."

90 "This blow on the head has given his heart a dangerous shock. He may pull through if he is kept quiet and not moved for twenty-four hours."

91 But there are many excellent reasons why Sally doesn't care to leave her husband in Beth's house - for Beth to nurse.

92 "Dearest, I've been hav- ing a terrible dream. I thought I was married to another woman."

93 "You weren't woman enough to keep him here when you had him - and you're not going to get the chance now. He belongs in my house - and that's where he's going!"

94 "If you move him you may kill him. The doctor says he must stay here until the crisis is over."

95 "You can order my stretcher bearers out of your house, but I guess the police will know who's got the right to take him."

96 "You give me that key - or I'll take it!"

97 "Seven years bad luck."

98 "Get away from that door, or I'll spoil your beauty with this, so that no man will ever look at you again!"

99 "Mrs. Gordon has decided to spend the night here. Haven't you?"

100 Through night's long hours until the day - one woman sleeps and forgets; the other watches and remembers.

101 "The crisis is over, Mrs. Gordon. He will recover. He can be taken home now."

102 "Take him home now if you like; but some day he's coming back to me - because he's mine."

103 "You don't want to go home. You told me that you came to town on business. Some busi- ness! But I've got something here that will fix her so you'll never want to look at her again."

104 "It's all right, dear - it's only my eye wash."

105 "You won't need this key anymore - because you're through in my house. There's only one good thing about mar- riage anyway - and that's alimony."

106 On the night of their second wedding there are two who have learned that romance can go on - through Marriage into the years beyond.

107 "I've something up- stairs, my dear, that I've been saving for you."

108 "Oh, I just adore curly hair."

109 And now you know what every husband knows: that a man would rather have his wife for his sweetheart than any other woman: but Ladies: if you would be your husband's sweetheart, you simply must learn when to forget that you're his wife.

110 The End.

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