A filmed adaptation of a Noel Coward play, Easy Virtue is rendered bland without his witty, crisp dialogue. Less visually impressive than Hitchcock's other early silent works, the movie does feature a lovely performance from stylish leading lady Isabel Jeans as Larita.The movie opens with a close-up of a judge's monocle which the audience views a courtroom through. Isabel Jeans is being sued for divorce by her husband and stands in front of the courtroom swathed in a black and white ensemble accentuated with several long strands of pearls; and a cloche hat on top of her wavy blonde bob.
Her old husband is granted his divorce; she didn't actually cheat on him per se, just got caught in an embrace with an artist painting her portrait. Her reputation is ruined!
Fleeing to the south of France, she meets up with a younger, boyish pretty-boy and they hastily marry. However, pretty-boy's snobby, repressed grey-haired big-boned Victorian mama doesn't like his new wife and snubs her crushing Larita's serendipity. Larita is eventually "discovered" as a scandalous divorced woman with no virtue; oh, my!
Her husband's mother demands an annulment of their marriage which the pretty-boy acquiesces to. But Larita isn't going down so easily; she decides to attend a big party the family is having dressed to the nines in a slinky, beaded dress, a beaded choker along with strands of long pearls, hoop earrings, feather boa, and an ostrich fan! GIRL WAS GOING OUT LOOKING GOOD!! The party-goers stare and gasp at her languid beauty as she slowly descends the staircase, stopping at her soon to be ex-husband, who is sitting at the bottom of the stairs with his former girlfriend, tapping him on the shoulder so he can look up and behold what he's giving up because of his tacky snobby bitch mother.
She makes her peace telling his ex-girlfriend, who is sweet and feels sorry for Larita, she can marry pretty-boy; their marriage was a "cowardly" act, anyways, Larita explains.
We see Larita again in divorce court clutching a fur stole. The press find out she's there, her first divorce had made the papers, and as Larita stands at the courthouse house entrance, photographers ready to snap her picture for the evening issues, she tells the shutterbugs, "Shoot. There's nothing left to kill."
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