Archival Print! Jon Mirsalis on Piano Pauline Frederick gives an astounding performance as a woman caught in the trap of advancing age and sexual appetite; the futility of her quest eventually drives her to commit murder. The "three women" are a wealthy widow, her grown daughter (May McAvoy) and a rake's mistress (Marie Prevost), all of whom are the objects of attention of the "hero" (Lew Cody). The satire is harsh for a Lubitsch film, although it is aimed at his usual targets: sex, money, and the lengths to which people will go to attain both. In his book, The Art of the American Film, Charles Higham writes, "Miss Frederick...gives a performance worlds removed from the artificiality of so many silent screen appearances. It is an unsparing revelation of the American woman's terror of age....(We) see not the carefully worked out disguises of the typical star, but the painful revelation of a soul."