
Her education in a French convent school completed, plain Justine Spencer returns to New York. There she is shocked to discover that her mother Dodo is a flamboyant musical comedy actress with many male admirers.


A convent girl walks into her mother’s cabaret—what follows is not a joke but a gunshot that ricochets through every gilt-edged frame of The Amateur Wife. The picture opens on a trans-Atlantic liner slicing through slate seas; Justine Spencer stands at the rail, Bible in gloved hand, hair scraped tighter than a nun’s...


Comparing the cinematic DNA and archive impact of two defining moments in cult history.

Edward Dillon

Edward Dillon
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" A convent girl walks into her mother’s cabaret—what follows is not a joke but a gunshot that ricochets through every gilt-edged frame of The Amateur Wife. The picture opens on a trans-Atlantic liner slicing through slate seas; Justine Spencer stands at the rail, Bible in gloved hand, hair scraped tighter than a nun’s wimple. Director William P. S. Earle shoots her in profile against a cruciform mast, a visual omen that piety will soon be keelhauled. Back in Manhattan, the camera glides past do..."
Jane Murfin, Nalbro Bartley
United States


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