Summary
Jane Morgan’s audacious rebellion against familial and societal constraints becomes a labyrinthine game of manipulation and identity in *The Match-Breaker*, a taut, noir-tinged melodrama where romantic entanglements morph into existential chess matches. With a script as sharp as a well-timed dagger, the film dissects the paradox of agency—how Jane, fleeing her father’s shadow, weaponizes her role as a 'match-breaker' to carve autonomy, only to find herself ensnared by the same machinations she seeks to dismantle. The narrative’s sinews tighten as the stakes spiral: a patriarch’s gullibility, a widow’s calculated ruthlessness, and a would-be suitor’s moral ambiguity collide in a crescendo of betrayal and redemption. It is a study in chiaroscuro, where every alliance is a potential trap, and every victory carries the weight of compromise.
Synopsis
Jane Morgan, to avoid marrying family lawyer Richard Van Loytor, takes her maid, Murray, and leaves home to make her own career. Finding it difficult to get work, she decides she is most accomplished as a "match-breaker" and offers her services in that capacity. Young broker Thomas Butler, Jr., who is concerned lest his father be snared by widow Madge Lariane, meets Jane at lunch and hires her to go to Coronado where his father is in Madge's coils, but they are seen by a detective in the employ of Butler, Sr. Thinking his son is the victim of a vamp, Mr. Butler hires Jane to break up the affair, but learning that she is the woman in the case he denounces her before young Tom. Madge traps Mr. Butler on his yacht with the aid of a confederate and tries to blackmail him. Jane follows them but is set adrift in a boat; she is rescued by Tom, and they return to foil the plotters and to get married themselves.
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