Mary's farewell to the screen (she flirted with later comeback offers and was definitely set for "Storm Center" in the '50s, but backed out) is a peculiar romantic melodrama, independently made by her own United Artists and lacking the discipline a big studio might have brought to it. When we first meet her she's 40 and playing half her age, as the rich daughter of stuffy banker C. Aubrey Smith, in love with underling Leslie Howard. Mary simpers and coos and overdoes the charm thing, like an overage Janet Gaynor, and though her speaking voice is fine, whatever charm she had as a silent heroine is lost. The young couple light out for the West and there are some nice "Cimarron"-like covered wagon sequences. They settle down in California with Ned Sparks as a typical aw-shucks Western sidekick, then Howard drives off some cattle thieves and is elected governor. Here's where the film takes a really strange turn, and here's the spoiler: We're led to believe that he's having an affair and has had many before, yet Mary stands by him, telling him that she knows she is truly his only love. And the movie takes that at face value. The excellent screenwriter, Frances Marion, must have simply written herself into a corner: There's no way to keep Howard's character sympathetic, or to explain Mary's fealty to him. The pair keep aging and get to play doddering fogies still in love with each other, to the embarrassment of their children, and it's an out-of-left-field conclusion to a movie that, as another commenter said, feels like three movies. The director, Frank Borzage, was a great romantic, and his hand is evident here: The production's stylized and attractive, with intentionally unrealistic looking vistas. And Mary has some good moments in the middle Western section, which turns surprisingly somber and tragic. But you can see why she didn't stick with movies after this: Her specialness is gone, and she's too old to compete with the leading ladies of the day.
