Summary
A caustic dissection of the Jazz Age’s moral elasticity, Daughters of Pleasure scrutinizes the staggering hypocrisy of Mark Hadley, a man whose recent financial ascension has birthed a grotesque sense of paternal righteousness. While Hadley castigates his daughter’s suitor, Kent Merrill, as a 'chippy chaser'—a colloquialism dripping with the era's specific brand of misogyny—he simultaneously navigates a clandestine labyrinth of infidelity. The narrative pivot occurs when Hadley’s daughter, seeking solace or perhaps a reflection of her own burgeoning independence, visits her old Parisian schoolmate, Lila. The ensuing collision is not merely a domestic scandal but a profound existential rupture; the 'French girl' Hadley has been dallying with is none other than the very woman his daughter calls a friend. This silent-era melodrama serves as a palimpsest of the era's social anxieties, where the nouveau riche attempt to purchase a morality they cannot possibly inhabit.
Synopsis
A newly wealthy Mark Hadley tells his daughter to get rid of her boyfriend Kent Merrill, who he says is a "chippy chaser". Meanwhile, Mark--unbeknownst to his wife and daughter--is having a fling with a pretty young French girl. When his daughter visits her friend Lila, who was a schoolmate in Paris, she is shocked to discover her father there--the French girl he's dallying with is Lila.
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