Who can she be? She was played by Gloria Swanson in a 1922 film, The Impossible Mrs Bellew but the film has disappeared.
The New York Times review gives a flavour of what we’ve missed.
The photoplay at the Rivoli is “The Impossible Mrs. Bellew.” It seems designed for the special exploitation of Miss Gloria Swanson, who can wear clothes, look injured and be smart. In her present rôle she begins life as the loving and long-suffering wife of a man who lets the world think that she has been unfaithful to him so he can divorce her and marry someone else. Then, to escape scandal, she goes to a French seaside resort and dives into the gay life there. She has been the victim of terrible injustice, you see, so every one is ready to forgive her if she seeks forgetfulness in the wild, wild world of Grand Dukes, American millionaires and things—provided, of course, she doesn’t go too far, which, of course, she doesn’t, not with a censor board sitting in Forty-second Street and censorial parents in every movie house west of Rahway. But she can be wicked and well dressed while the censors and the censorial parents know all the time that she loves her little son, has always been true to her husband, and will eventually marry the nice novelist who never doubts any more than the censors and the parents do that she is a good woman. So, it’s all neatly arranged, you see. It’s well photographed too; it’s settings are as elaborate and as tasteless as they should be, and its marionettes wear the clothes and make the gestures expected of them.
I like “photoplay”. The film introduces a character not in the 1916 novel by David Lisle on which it is based, namely Aunt Agatha. Is it too fanciful to imagine PG Wodehouse seeing the film and adopting the character? Norman Murphy always asserted that PGW never made anything up if he could help it. The film was ranked 146th of films released in 1922.
The 29 Oct 1922 FD review was unsparing in its criticism, calling the film “as ‘impossible’ as Mrs. Bellew is supposed to be,” and deeming the story “very poor” and Sam Wood’s direction “only fair.” One possibility may have been that the elements that made the novel a sensation “have either been eliminated or toned down by the censor.”
David Lisle is almost as lost as the film. He dedicates his novel “to my friend The Baroness de la Fertè-Goncer”. I can find no trace of her and little about him – although he was quite a prolific novelist. The novel is a little more revealing about the impossible Mrs B. She is three parts Irish, daughter of James Beresford, “a fine old chap, proud as Lucifer and … stony broke. One of the oldest families in Ireland, the Beresfords, but they let their property go to pot and at the last their place, Castle Martin, was a regular ruin.” The novel must have been rather scandalous but today is almost unreadable. I bought a first edition, hardback from Falls Bookstore in Vermont. The bookseller contacted me to ask if I am related to The Impossible Mrs Bellew; over the years there has been more than one.
Great title.
Reading a synopsis of the novel & film, perhaps ‘impossible’ should have been modified to ‘implausible’. Obviously I have not read (and, frankly don’t intend to read) the novel, so perhaps the sensational nature of the plot has been somewhat lost on me, though I think that even one of Brother Bru’s burlesques, would make superior reading.
Surely it is high time we heard some more accounts of authentic Bellews (family history). Their actions are far more scandalous and entertaining than anything exhibited by some fictional character.
This is uproariously funny.
“The bookseller contacted me to ask if I am related to The Impossible Mrs Bellew; over the years there has been more than one.”
That is great writing. Astonishingly concise and witty. Bravo. And your last line!