Wanda Carson travels to Reno, Nevada to visit her brother Sam, but finds that he went to the hills to work. Curious about the lively divorce colony, Wanda, who has never had a romance, impersonates a divorcée, exhibits her companion's baby as her own, and becomes the colony's favorite.
Rufus Steele
United States
The Mirage of the Reno Colony The 1917 iteration of The Divorcee is a peculiar artifact of American silent cinema, a narrative that dances precariously on the edge of social satire and earnest melodrama. Directed with a certain kinetic energy that belies its age, the film serves as a window into t...
Comparing the cinematic DNA and archive impact of two defining moments in cult history.
William Wolbert
William Wolbert
Community
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" The Mirage of the Reno Colony The 1917 iteration of The Divorcee is a peculiar artifact of American silent cinema, a narrative that dances precariously on the edge of social satire and earnest melodrama. Directed with a certain kinetic energy that belies its age, the film serves as a window into the burgeoning 'divorce colony' of Reno, Nevada—a place that, in the early 20th century, represented both a scandalous moral vacuum and a beacon of liberation for the constrained wo..."
