Summary
A tempest of gender subterfuge and social satire, *Opportunity* unfolds as a 1920s cinematic charade where identity becomes a malleable mask. Mary Willard, denied access to a prizefight by her rigid father Henry, adopts her brother’s garb to infiltrate the event, unknowingly setting in motion a cascade of deceptions. Her collision with Anthony Fry—a man who equates ambition with audacious risk—ignites a farcical odyssey of mistaken identities and moral reckoning. As Anthony’s apartment becomes a stage for clandestine encounters, the film’s narrative pivots between slapstick and pathos, interrogating the fragility of perception. Louis Wolheim’s brooding house detective and Elsie MacLeod’s spirited Mary form the spine of this theatrical tangle, where every revelation fractures the audience’s trust in what they witness. The climax, a collision of truth and artifice, reframes the film’s central metaphor: opportunity as both a liberating force and a trap for the unwary.
Synopsis
When Henry Clay Willard refuses to allow his athletically inclined daughter Mary to attend a prizefight, she goes to the bout dressed in her brother's clothes. Next to her sits wealthy businessman Anthony Fry, who, believing that opportunity knocks only once, decides to give the "boy" his big chance. Anthony takes Mary to his apartment, where the house detective, troubled by the "boy's" strange appearance, begins an investigation. A series of misunderstandings follows, during which Anthony's visiting friend, Johnson Bowler, nearly loses his new wife Beatrice, who arrives unexpectedly to discover a woman in the apartment, and finally, Mary's father is called. Upon his arrival, all is explained, and Anthony and Mary decide to take advantage of the strange opportunity that brought them together.
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