Chris Straayer is a professor of cinema studies at New York University and the author of Deviant Eyes, Deviant Bodies: Sexual Re-orientation in Film and Video.

When Lillian's (Edith Storey) foppish fiancé (director Sidney Drew) is too busy flirting with a wealthy female guest to notice his betrothed, she spitefully ingests a mysterious African seed, hoping for revenge. The next morning Lillian is surprised to find the beginnings of a moustache on her upper lip, and quickly learns to use the transformation to her advantage, becoming a Casanova who-to the shock of her fiancé-earns the affections of almost every girl in town. But when Lillian forces the seed upon her blackface maid, the comedy takes a disconcerting turn. As more and more people succumb to the African drug, the lighthearted comedy increasingly reveals disturbing social mores.