Have you ever heard of "Floyd's of London"? I'm quite sure you haven't because it's a joke on "Lloyd's of London", the famous insurance market.
Yes, we are in the world of insurances today and you can imagine it will be an unusual one we are dealing with in "The Reckless Age" from 1924.
First, the plot (spoilers!)
Lord Allan Harrowby from London is meeting with the two top managers of Floyd's of London.
He has an unusual request. He will marry the heiress Cecilia Meyrick soon and wants to take out an insurance for $100,000 against her changing her mind.
The managers agree, but first he has to sign an agreement that there will be no compensation if the wedding is off due to his own actions. Also, they will send their risk manager Richard Minot along to Florida to make sure the wedding goes through.
They put all their trust in Dick who has never disappointed them so far and give him a token of their appreciation, a watch.
The watch is engraved on the back - and no, I have absolutely no idea if they were just too cheap to get the real watch engraved for the film or if that picture was missing in the only existing print and was replaced by this masterpiece (which is shown twice).
On the train, Dick happens to meet Cecilia. Unfortunately, it is love at first sight for him which makes the whole mission very awkward for him now.
Although Cecilia also feels attracted to Dick, she is very keen on arriving in San Marco in time for the lunch where her engagement will be announced.
When the train is held up by a pig family, Dick decides to take a "taxy" to get Cecilia to the lunch in time. The train-car chase makes for a really cool stunt which made me jump.
From that moment on, Dick has a hard time to make this wedding happen.
Cecilia is not at all sure about it anymore, she and Dick keep flirting.
Naive Lord Harrowby is befriended by con man Martin Wall.
A valuable diamond necklace is stolen right off Cecilia's neck.
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| Pushing Cecilia over to Lord Harrowby to faint. |
Some other guy turns up and claims to be the real Lord Harrowby. Dick has him taken to Wall's yacht to get him out of the way.
Actress Gabrielle Rose arrives with whom the Lord used to have an affair. She threatens to sue him for breaking his marriage promise. Luckily, Dick finds proof that she had already been married at the time and isn't divorced yet.
Are you already confused? Because, you know, we are not even halfway through the movie yet.
Meanwhile, Allan has endorsed the policy to Wall for a loan of the money he thinks he needs to get rid of Gabrielle Rose. Of course, Wall sees his chance to make a lot of money if he brings the other Lord back into the game.
Cecilia's father demands identification for the wedding to take place.
Allan's reaction is to run off. It's not looking good for him. Good for Dick and Cecilia, though. Only she doesn't want to see that because she still doesn't know why Dick has done everything to push that wedding through while saying he loves her. It's quite understandable that she's mad.
And don't you know it, the Lord is back! He's in company of the Duke and Duchess of Lismore who are friends of his and also of the Meyricks.
The other Lord gets introduced and Lismore recognizes him as the former butler. Another obstacle is removed.
Martin Wall, however, is still working on his plan. He offers the local paper's editor $1,000 to put the insurance story in the next issue.
The editor thinks he can do better than that, prints the story and goes to Cecilia's father offering him to destroy the issue if he buys the paper for $20,000.
Of course, Wall isn't happy when he finds out, they start fighting, Dick arrives and joins the fight (Denny used to be a boxer and started out in boxing two-reelers), then the employees, and in the end the whole office is in shambles. When Allan and Cecilia turn up, Cecilia learns about the insurance and Dick's role in it. Obviously, the marriage is off for good now and Dick doesn't have good cards, either.
Wall tries to claim the money, but since it was Allan's fault for telling him, the policy is invalid. To top it off, a police officer turns up because they found the necklace and jewels in Wall's room, yes, he has even stolen the yacht!
Dick and Cecilia meet again when the train they're on has a problem and they go for the same "taxy". The driver can tell there's something wrong between them and drives so wildly on purpose that they keep bumping into one another - until they can't resist anymore.
I know that it sounds like a very confusing movie, but it really isn't.
Dick handles one problem after the other and Floyd's trust in him is absolutely justified because he handles them well.
Denny was a popular actor in the 20s (and still worked in film until his death beside being an engineer and inventor) which isn't surprising as he was good at romance, comedy, but also action.
He and Ruth Dwyer make this a cute little romantic comedy.
As you might know, dollar princesses absolutely existed - rich heiresses marrying into titled families who needed money. In this case, the Lord is even in love with Cecilia - that wasn't always the case with these marriages - although I'm not sure about her feelings because she falls for Dick awfully quickly.
Not even the insurance is that unusual. There is indeed an insurance company offering a "change of heart" policy, just not that shortly before the wedding date.
The only awkward bit was that there was one example of blackface with the taxi driver.
When I saw that the movie was an adaptation of the book "Love Insurance" by Earl Derr Biggers, I had just finished another book and figured why not?
Although I had only read one or two of the books and watched one or two of the movies years ago, Biggers was familiar to me as the creator of Charlie Chan. I hadn't been aware that he was a journalist and playwright as well and also wrote other successful novels before Charlie Chan.
You thought there was a lot happening in the movie?
Although the basic plot was the same, the book had even more people and twists! For some reason, the movie turned Lloyd's into Floyd's and turned Cynthia into Cecilia.
The story had been serialized in several newspapers in 1914 and was published as a book later that year. It was quite amusing to read, so much so that I put other Biggers pre-Chan books on my list, but I think reading it in installments might have made more sense to keep the whirlwind feeling down a bit. Oh well, those sleepless night.
Source:
Marc Wanamaker/Kimberly Pucci/Janice Simpson: The Reckless Age (L'età frenetica). On: Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 36, Pordenone, 30 September | 7 October 2017





































