Too Many Wives

A matrimonial kaleidoscope whirls across the screen as Harry Ham, a small-town notary with the conscience of a tomcat, finds himself simultaneously pledged to three women—each convinced she is the sole Mrs. Hamlin. Dorothy Devore’s pert stenographer discovers the ruse first, brandishing a marriage certificate like a duelist’s foil; a society widow arrives with a diamond-studded wedding band and a lawyer in tow; meanwhile, a tempestuous flapper from the wrong side of the tracks claims a moonlit elopement sealed with a chipped gold ring. The film stitches these duelling nuptials into a frenetic farce of slamming doors, forged ledgers, and a courthouse clock that strikes thirteen whenever perjury is committed. Ham scuttles through boarding-house windows, pawnshops, and a séance parlor where the ghost of his bachelorhood is exhumed by a cigar-chomping medium. When the three brides collide inside a justice’s cramped chambers, the screenplay detonates into a comic opera of alibis: forged death certificates, a toddler mistakenly signed as witness, and a bloodhound that recognizes only the scent of deceit. By the final reel, the polygamous protagonist has auctioned off his duplicity to the highest bidder—only to discover that every exit is a vestibule to another altar. The curtain falls on a quadruple wedding in which the groom’s identity is obscured by a veil, leaving the audience to ponder whether monogamy itself was the real casualty.