Summary
A single mis-buttoned overcoat, swapped between two diners on a rainy noon hour, becomes the hinge upon which Mildred Carl Graham’s 1918 one-reeler pirouettes. Cuthbert King, a feckless swell forever one chip away from ruin, cadges cash from his poised sister Phyllis only to stumble out clutching the wrong garment—an ulster lined with destiny in the shape of a blood-warm Hindu necklace. Its keeper, Grayson Blair, antiquarian and secret romantic, settles Phyllis’s thwarted lunch tab with the casual gallantry of a man signing a love letter he has yet to write. When he discovers the talismanic bijou gone, his suspicion falls on the impecunious girl who, moments earlier, smelled faintly of lilacs and unpaid rent. What follows is a fugue of mistaken identities, cross-dressed sleuthing, and spectral colonial guilt: Phyllis, slipping into her brother’s pin-stripe armor, hunts the jewel through fog-slick streets while Rhi—an almost-silent avenger in a sari the color of monsoon—shadows every footstep, determined to restore the jade to the temple idol whose hollow eyes once watched it looted. Coats change backs, carriages nearly collide, a pistol misfires in a moonlit greenhouse, and finally the necklace—cool as moonlight on marble—returns to the hand that paid for champagne, not in coins but in trust. Engagement rings replace handcuffs; the curtain falls on a city still humming with streetcars and unspoken reparations.
Synopsis
During lunch, Cuthbert King asks his sister Phyllis for a loan to pay off his gambling debts. Upon leaving the restaurant, he accidentally takes the overcoat of antique jewelry dealer Grayson Blair. When Phyllis is unable to pay her bill, Grayson, attracted to her, picks up the check, but after he arrives home and discovers that a valuable Hindu necklace he had stored in his coat pocket is missing, he suspects Phyllis as the crook. Dressing up in her brother's clothes, Phyllis finds the necklace, suspects her brother, and seeks out Grayson, whom she has discovered to be the jewel's owner. After a series of mix-ups during which Rhi, who has been trailing the necklace to return it to the Hindu idol from which it was stolen, tries unsuccessfully to kill Grayson, the overcoat is recognized, everything is cleared up, and Grayson and Phyllis become engaged.
Review Excerpt
"
The nickelodeon curtain rises to the hiss of carbon-arc light, and already A Bit of Jade announces itself as something other than the standard one-reel filler wedged between newsreels and sing-along slides. Cinematographer David Howard lenses the opening luncheonette with a gliding lateral dolly—an early, audacious flourish—so that silverware becomes a shimmering minefield and the checkered floor tilts like a chessboard mid-game. In this single setup, destinies crisscross: Cuthbert King, that ..."
