Wife or Country

A lost silent drama film directed by Raoul Walsh and starring Renée Adorée, Carlo Liten, Harrison Hunter, Beatrice Noyes, Florence Malone, and Jean Gauthier DeTrigny. It is based on the 1919 French novel Les Plus Fort by Georges Clemenceau.

Walsingham Van Dorn has a fancy name but no money until he inherits 40 million dollars from a pair of wealthy, but wicked, uncles.

Happy in her devotion to her unfortunate sister and the promise of honest love that had come into her life, the girl was perhaps blind to true values. She became indifferent to her life and its surroundings. Accordingly she accepted the stranger and his doubtful promises. Honest love and duty were forgotten, until, caught near life's uncertain edge, she was called back by her blind sister's peril. Thus was true love separated from blind infatuation and life's lesson learned.

Boulevardier Sir Nicholas Thormonde (Lew Cody) has to choose between his mistress Suzette (Renée Adorée) and his virtuous secretary Alathea (Harriet Hammond) in wartime Paris.

The girl's lessons from the young station agent on the manipulation of the telegraph code served her in good stead. By it, hemmed in on all sides at the lonely farmhouse, she was able to save both herself and her father's money from desperate tramps, an experience which is grippingly illustrated in this Biograph melodrama.

In this film one is shown the contrast of two fathers. One father refuses to believe his son guiltless, while the other, fully realizing the weakness of his son, struggles to save him from further disgrace. In this attempt he exonerates the innocent youth, but at the same time exposes the guilt of his own son.

No doubt the old antique dealer was prejudiced against his junior clerk. After frequent shortages, the clerk's visit to the gambling house was reported by the detective and he was discharged. In truth, he had gone to find the senior clerk, who owed him money which he needed for his mother, hovering close to the edge of life. By sharp detective work, the designs of the senior clerk were frustrated.

Compelled to keep house for her father and her younger sister and brother, Martha is deprived of all the pleasures of youth. Ned, who loves her, begs her to elope with him. Martha yields, but while on the way to the minister, decides that her duty lies back home with her father. Heart-broken, Ned leaves for the city.

Margaret Jarnette discovers that her husband Victor has been cheating on her and confronts him. Outraged, Victor has his lawyer rewrite his will so that in the event of his death, his brother Richard will get custody of his daughter Muriel, and his wife won't. When Victor dies shortly afterward, Richard suspects that Margaret had murdered him and takes custody of Muriel. However, he soon begins to suspect that things may not be quite as cut-and-dried as he thought they were.

Owing to his father's illness, Cecil Crenwell is sent to inspect the family rice plantation in Hawaii. While there he falls in love with Hawai'ian girl Uana and wins her away from her native beau Kau.

Katherine Nevin and her brother Jack are given positions on the newspaper of James Osborne following their father's death. Osborne's city editor, Charles MacLaughlin, who is hated and feared by his business associates, is strongly attracted to Katherine, who accepts his mother's invitation to dinner. In spite of his ruthless manner Katherine tries to change the atheistic views of "Mac" and his embittered crippled brother, Angus.