The Fair Barbarian

The Misleading Widow is a 1919 silent film comedy starring Billie Burke as Betty Taradine. It was based on the 1917 stage play Billeted by F. Tennyson Jesse and H.M. Harwood. The film was produced by Famous Players-Lasky and distributed through Paramount Pictures. It appears to be a lost film.

Ann Barton, the daughter of a once-wealthy family, is forced to clerk at the cigar counter of a village hotel, where she meets James McDonald, a breezy, handsome salesman. Ann is adopted by an aristocratic aunt, who disapproves of James's manners and breaks up Ann's relationship with him. Ann soon revenges herself on her aunt by placing both her aunt and herself in compromising positions.

During World War I, Jeanette Gontreau becomes a "godmother" to three Allied soldiers imprisoned in a German camp. Describing herself as an old woman, she sends them cheerful letters and baskets of small gifts until one of the soldiers, Harry Ledyard, informs her that he has been released and will visit her in New York. Panic-stricken, Jeanette dons a wig and spectacles, and although she convinces Harry that she is old and gray, she soon falls in love with him. Harry worships his "godmother," and when secret service agents discover coded messages on her letters, he shields her by assuming the blame.

A lost film. Teddy Drake is a pleasure-seeking aristocrat who ends up expelled from his exclusive Fifth Avenue club for playing practical jokes and other rambunctious antics. He decides to reform his selfish ways and boards a train heading heading for the Southwest.

When a secretary overhears her boss disparaging her looks, she decides to show him how wrong he is.

Rooly, Pooly and Dooly were "picture sandwiches," but hardly shining lights, even in that capacity. Consequently they were "canned" by the management. A brilliant idea; one would play the wild man in the village square, a real live show of their own. Rooly and Pooly then basked in the society of fair country belles, but Dooly at length was rescued by Miss Smart, looking for excitement. She was not disappointed.

While working as a dishwasher in a fashionable New York hotel, Elsie MacFarland often sneaks upstairs to enviously peek at the people dancing to jazz music. Seeing the attractive Elsie dressed in a boy's uniform, wealthy Lemuel Stallings wagers a friend that he can get Elsie onto the dance floor....

When Pinto reaches her eighteenth birthday, the five wealthy Arizonans who adopted her upon the death of her parents decide that ranch life will never make a lady of her. Their old friend Pop Audry, formerly of Arizona and now a member of New York society, agrees to provide Pinto with the necessary education. Accordingly, Pinto and her cowboy nursemaid Looey are dispatched to New York where they lose Audry's address. ...

Cowboy Billy Fortune is in love with Hope Beecher, who prefers Billy's friend Ben Morgan, but resists his advances because of his fondness for drink. Hope's discontent is echoed by the town wives' public outcry against drink. To divert their interest, Billy is nominated to make love to their leader, widow Fay Bittinger, who has already disposed of four husbands....

Harpo played the hero, a detective named Watson who "made his entrance in a high hat, sliding down a coal chute into the basement". Groucho played an "old movie" villain, who "sported a long moustache and was clad in black", while Chico was probably his "chuckling [Italian] henchman". Zeppo portrayed a playboy who was the owner of a nightclub in which most of the action took place, including "a cabaret, [which allowed] the inclusion of a dance number". The final shot showed Groucho "in ball and chain, trudging slowly off into the gloaming". Harpo, in a rare moment of romantic glory, gets the girl in the end. This film is lost.

Silas Warner dictates a letter commanding his son Harry to leave college at once and enter his office as an employee. Furthermore, Mr. Warner has in mind the marriage of his son to his partner's daughter. When Harry receives his father's letter, he returns home, but takes a decided stand in opposition to his father's ideas. Furthermore, Harry is about to be married to Rose Blend. Warner's partner, Martin, turns out to be a defaulter, and almost ruins the firm. Harry reads a newspaper account of his father's ills and trouble, so he and his wife go to see and assist him. As Mr. Warner is convalescent, he extends to his son and wife his parental blessings.