Easy Virtue (1928 film)

Easy Virtue is a 1928 British silent romance film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Isabel Jeans, Franklin Dyall and Ian Hunter.

Larita Filton Isabel Jeans is on the witness stand testifying regarding her pending divorce. In a flashback, her husband, a drunken brute named Aubrey Filton Franklin Dyall, is getting drunk in an artists studio, as Mrs. Filtons portrait is painted. His drunkenness prevents her from being able to sit for the portrait. Meanwhile, the painter, Claude Eric Bransby Williams, is smitten with Larita. He sends her a letter professing his desire that she leave the physically abusive Mr. Filton, and allow him to be a good husband to her instead. Later, he attempts to kiss her when her husband is not present. She rejects Claudes advances and is pushing him away, when Aubrey walks in on them appearing to be embraced. Aubrey confronts Claude. Claude runs for a gun he has hidden, and shoots but misses Aubrey. Aubrey begins to beat Claude severely with his walking cane. In the struggle, Claude shoots Aubrey, who falls to the floor, still alive. Larita rushes to her husbands side. Two servants enter separately and each see Claude standing with the gun, and run for police. As Claude watches, one servant beckon a policemen to follow her. Claude realizes what he has done and looks terrified. Presumably, he shoots himself, as police in the next frame are kneeling over Claudes lifeless body. Larita seems completely uninterested in Claude, and is holding her nonmortally wounded husband lovingly in her lap on the floor. He reaches over, and picks up the note from Claude to Larita, which asked her to leave her husband, presumably seeing it for the first time.Aubrey files for divorce on the grounds of adultery, which is why Larita is testifying her innocence in court this day. The jury rejects Laritas testimony that she was never inappropriate with the artist. The jury instead decides in Aubreys favor, in large part considering the proof that Larita is quite attractive, and Claude had written a will leaving her his entire fortune to another mans wife . As Larita leaves the courtroom in sh

Source: Wikipedia