Life’s Shop Window

Life’s Shop Window is a 1914 American silent drama film directed by J. Gordon Edwards and starring Claire Whitney and Stuart Holmes. It is a film adaptation of the 1907 novel of the same name by Annie Sophie Cory. It was the first film produced, rather than simply distributed, by William Fox’s Box Office Attractions Company, the corporate predecessor to Fox Film.

About Life’s Shop Window in brief

Summary Life's Shop WindowLife’s Shop Window is a 1914 American silent drama film directed by J. Gordon Edwards and starring Claire Whitney and Stuart Holmes. It is a film adaptation of the 1907 novel of the same name by Annie Sophie Cory. The film depicts the story of English orphan Lydia Wilton, and her husband Bernard Chetwin. Wilton is tempted by infidelity with an old acquaintance, Eustace Pelham, before seeing the error of her ways and returning to her family. It was the first film produced, rather than simply distributed, by William Fox’s Box Office Attractions Company, the corporate predecessor to Fox Film. It proved very popular upon its initial release in New York, and that success was used to advertise the film elsewhere. Like many of Fox’s early works, it was likely lost in the 1937 Fox vault fire.

Like the novel, the film’s screenplay removed much of the book’s controversial sexual elements, to make it more respectable to appear more respectable in the film industry. It may have been the director’s debut in what is disputed as Elmo Stmoing claims to have directed the film at the earlier age of 25. The novel was written by Victoria Cross, a popular but controversial British New Woman novelist who often reversed the expected gender roles of the time, permitting female desire to motivate the plot. The main character of the novel was described as ‘a very modernist heroine’, comparing her to a more socially successful Hester Prynne. The book attracted controversy, and was banned for a time by the Circulating Libraries Association in the United Kingdom.