Black Eyes (1915)

• 54%
• 1915
• Comedy
• Will Louis
• Raymond McKee
• Jean Dumar
• Guido Colucci

Mr. and Mrs. Willard are happily married, but Mr. Willard's law partner is somewhat of a rounder, and often tries to induce Willard to "come on out for a big time." One day, it is the day on which Willard has promised to take his wife to the theater, Willard's partner tells him that he has secured tickets for the big prize fight and begs Willard to accompany him that evening. Willard finally consents, and making an excuse to his wife, gets away. Mrs. Willard accepts a neighbor's invitation to play "bridge," and leaves for home after she has lost a good deal of money. Hubby, however, has arrived home first, and he "calls her down" for being out so late, forgetting to state that he has only been home for five minutes himself. They both promise to "never do it again." But a week later, Willard's partner reminds him that they have both been invited to a masked ball at the home of a lady friend of the partner's. Willard plots with his partner to get away by having the partner send him a fake telegram calling him to Trenton. Willard receives the telegram and his wife is quite convinced of the necessity of his going to "Trenton." The same evening, while he is at the ball, she again goes to a bridge party. Quarreling with one of the women who cheats, she receives a black eye when the woman hurls a pack of cards in her face. She goes home horrified to find that it is growing worse every minute. Reading a paper, she comes across the advertisement of Professor Scarab, who guarantees to restore black eyes to their natural color in fifteen minutes. Off to the professor's goes Mrs. Willard, thinking only of having the eye brought to its normal appearance by the time hubby gets back from Trenton. But, meantime, hubby himself has received a beautiful black eye as the result of a fight with one of the male guests at the ball. His partner knows of Professor Scarab and rushes him off to have his eye attended to. While hubby is resting in an ante-room of the professor's establishment, his wife is occupying another. While resting, Mrs. Willard picks up a newspaper, emits a horrified scream when she reads that the train on which her husband is "returning from Trenton" has been wrecked, and all the passengers reported killed. Willard, in an adjoining room, hears the scream and comes in, a sheet from the cot on which he has been lying wrapped about him. It takes a moment or two to convince his wife that it is not a ghost that she sees, and then she promises faithfully never to play bridge again. Willard, glad to be let out of a scrape himself, assures her that he forgives her and takes her in his arms.