Summary
Moonlit roulette wheels spin like silver coins against the velvet night of a gilded resort where Josephine Burden—heiress incognito, draped in chiffon secrecy—drifts through cigarette haze and orchestral sighs. Horace Beard, card-sharp with a poet’s hollow gaze, stakes his last lucid dream on her enigmatic profile, never guessing her purse is deeper than the lake outside. Lodging-house vulture George Collins, nostrils flaring for the scent of inheritances, intoxicates Horace with whiskey and whispers, coaxing a drunken scrawl: fifty-thousand dollars payable should wedding bells ring. What follows is a pas de deux of mirage and marble: moonlit promenades, clandestine letters slipped under mahogany doors, vows murmured in a candle-lit chapel where shadows look like witnesses. Yet paper demons awaken; Collins presents his venal contract, Josephine’s ears catch the chink of betrayal, and she annuls passion itself. In the bruised dawn, Horace slinks through Collins’s French windows, fists and conscience swinging, desperate to retrieve the incriminating parchment. Blood on lace curtains, a confession wrested under chandelier light, and finally two silhouettes embracing on a pier, the lake finally still enough to return their doubled reflection.
Synopsis
Josephine Burden, a young heiress vacationing at a summer resort, meets inveterate gambler Horace Beard at a casino. Horace becomes infatuated with Josephine, unaware that she is wealthy. Fellow lodger George Collins sees financial gain for himself in arranging an introduction for the two and convinces an inebriated Horace to sign a note promising Collins $50,000 if the introduction results in marriage. Horace and Josephine meet, fall in love and marry, but when Collins demands payment, Josephine overhears and repudiates her marriage. In an attempt to recover the damning agreement, Beard breaks into the Collins home, and a fight ensues. Collins finally confesses to his ploy and Josephine and Horace are reunited.
Review Excerpt
"
The first time we see Josephine Burden, she is a negative-image heiress: all porcelain silhouette against a casino’s argent glare, her wealth erased by dim light and deliberate anonymity.
Director Charles M. Seay understands that in 1920, opulence reads loudest when half-submerged. Thus the picture opens inside a kaleidoscope of roulette marbles clacking like hail on glass, champagne flutes catching chandelier prisms, and croupiers whose moustaches look forged from leftover noir. Enter Horace..."
