The Heart of Nora Flynn

• 1916

• Watchlist

This early Cecil B. DeMille feature already shows the director's predilection towards morality plays. Marie Doro plays Nora Flynn, a nursemaid for an unhappily wed couple. Nora is in love with the chauffeur, Nolan (Elliott Dexter), while her mistress, Mrs. Stone (Lola May), has taken up with a playboy (Charles West). Nora winds up hiding Mrs. Stone's lover in her own room, where Nolan finds him and shoots him in a jealous fit. The man makes it through alive, but because of the resulting scandal, Mr. Stone (Ernest Joy) fires Nora, claiming she's unfit to teach his children. Even so, Nora refuses to tell on her mistress. The grateful Mrs. Stone confides the truth to Nolan, and he and Nora are reunited. The DeMille style -- classy, larger-than-life sets and cinematography, and somewhat heavy-handed attitudes about virtue -- is displayed here, but he hasn't yet developed the overblown presentation which later became his trademark.