Something to Think About

The DeMille/Swanson pairing teamed up once again in October 1920's "Something To Think About." This is one of the first movies, if not the first, to have a disable person as a romantic lead. Actor Elliot Dexter suffered a stroke a few months before filming and became partially paralyzed. The Jeanie MacPherson script was reshaped to reflect the actor's condition. Dexter, an admirer of the Swanson character dating way back to childhood, befriends her father and secretly pays for her college tuition. Once an adult, Swanson's attentions are elsewhere, much to the consternation of her father. An accidental death by her now husband sends Swanson in a tizzy, and Dexter steps up his game to get her attention.

Dexter, supported by a pair of crutches, is undoubtedly not cinema's most romantic catch. But a spiritual awakening happens to Swanson, a moral message the audience comes away with a deeper understanding of relationships and the layers of complexities each person brings into marriage.

DeMille directed Swanson in only one other movie the next year after a string of bonanza hits. They appeared together 29 years later in Billy Wilder's 1950 'Sunset Boulevard."