The Broken Butterfly (1919)

The Broken Butterfly: Directed by Maurice Tourneur. With Lew Cody, Mary Alden, Pauline Starke, Peaches Johnson. Before she parts from him for a while, a woman falls in love with a composer, working on a symphony, who she encounters in the forests of Canada.

“In the wiles of Canada outcast Maracene Eliot has but one friend, her dog. The aunt who raised her has done so cruelly leaving the young lady isolated and without a past. She meets a composer who falls for her but she refuses to marry him because she has no history. He returns to Europe, writes a classical piece inspired by her and it promptly flops. Meanwhile Marcene decides to drown herself and the child of the composer. Professionally and personally at a low point he glumly goes about his life when he meets Marceneu0026#39;s sister who explained her sisters predicament and perhaps the reason for the auntu0026#39;s callousness. He marries the sister and then returns with her to Canada where answers to nagging questions await along with a couple of other surprises.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThis copious tear jerker has more than its fair share of poignant moments in a somewhat contrived narrative that remains mostly in a permanent state of melancholy. Director Maurice Tourneur vision however is both graceful and deliberate in his telling, presenting a good deal of tasteful canvases that covers for the lack of action. Pauline Starku0026#39;s touching performance is ultimately what carries the picture and opens the floodgates as a true orphan of the storm.”