Summary
In a moonlit manor where marble staircases echo with whispers of old money, Iris—porcelain-skinned heiress to a railroad empire—trades her gilded cage for the oil-scented embrace of Tom, the chauffeur whose leather gloves still carry the ghost of steering-wheel heat. Their elopement detonates the social lattice: Richard, her erstwhile fiancé, retaliates by wedding Shamrock, the laundress’s daughter whose palms know every starch-stiff collar in the household. The film then pirouettes through a masquerade of divorces, remarriages, champagne soirées that curdle into brawls, and dawn-lit courthouse steps where silk hems trail through puddles of scandal. Jeanie Macpherson’s script stitches together opera-length stares, a children’s chorus humming ragtime hymns, and a final shot of Iris—now clad in a mechanic’s jumpsuit—watching biplanes scar the sky above the Riviera, her smile half emancipation, half elegy.
Synopsis
Though betrothed to fellow socialite Richard, Iris weds her chauffeur Tom, leaving Richard to marry the family laundress' daughter Shamrock. Class differences lead to divorces and remarriages.
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