Smouldering Fires (film)

Plot

At 40, businesswoman Jane Vale (Pauline Frederick) falls in love with a much younger Robert Elliott (Malcolm McGregor), an employee from her factory. She promotes him to the position of her private secretary, and out of gratitude and to defend her reputation from rumors, he asks her to marry him. However, before the marriage can take place, Jane's younger sister Dorothy (Laura La Plante) returns home from college and Robert and Dorothy fall in love. Lacking the courage to confess to Jane of his love for her sister, Robert marries Jane. Robert finds that the difference in ages between him and Jane are creating complications. When Jane realizes that Robert, though diligently attentive as a husband, is actually in love with her sister, she pretends that she has fallen out of love with him and seeks a divorce.

Reception

Reviewer Hal Erickson wrote that the film "is a first-rate silent 'soap opera', immaculately performed by its superb cast and brilliantly directed." While praising the American release version, he made note that the "slightly longer European version is even better, with some remarkably mature (albeit non-lurid) setpieces".

In The First Female Stars: Women of the Silent Era, author David W. Menefee writes that the film "presented Pauline (Frederick) in a memorable light, successfully carrying off the role of a woman business executive."

In Movies and American Society, author Steven J. Ross wrote that Smoudering Fires was "a cautionary tale of what happens when businesswomen become too successful."

Cast

Members of "The Committee:"