10/10
How much is your pride worth? Everything, if you are a British officer.
2 April 2023
So long afterwards, this absurd case must seem somewhat preposterous. Five gentlemen play at cards with increasing stakes, two of them find themselves engaged in a card duel, both having excellent hands with no possibility to guess at the other's, one of them constantly drinking whisky, and when he loses he runs amuck and accuses the winner of cheating, whose pride can't accept this, so he knocks the loser down, who upsets the entire table with all its money, making any evidence of the game impossible, the other card players side with the winner, knowing him to be an impeccable card player impossible of cheating, but someone else in the company sides with the loser and claims he saw the deceit. Stalemate. Clive Brook wants to bring the matter to court, but his friends persuade him not to, for the sake of the regiment. He submits and departs for a voluntary exile, while the matter is far from closed. He is shunned and locked out from clubs and society, until he decides to finally bring the matter to court after a year. Wonderful court scenes ensue including Francis L. Sullivan as his tremendous lawyer and Felix Aylmer pleading for the drunk. This is gorgeous. Out of a mere trifle, that should have been settled at once with just an excuse, a mountain is built involving the entire society and the general public, while Clive Brook steadfastly keeps his poker face to protect the fact that the root of the problem is that he had a relationship with the accuser's wife. A preposterous mountain is built to avoid a public scandal, which naturally just makes the scandal even more formidable. Fortunately Clive Brook has Ann Todd for a wife which actually saves the entire situation, as the catcher in the rye.
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