An Ideal Husband

Goddard is stunning as a young adventuress who tries to blackmail the politically rising Williams. She discovers that he sold a cabinet secret concerning the Suez Canal in his youth, and threatens to expose him if he doesn't support a phony Argentine canal scheme in Parliament. He initially agrees, but his wife, Wynyard, persuades him to do the opposite. Wilding, his best friend and Goddard's ex-fiance, talks the crafty woman out of the blackmail scheme. Based on an Oscar Wilde play, it comes across very stuffy in its proper 1895 atmosphere. Wilde's wit is no longer that witty, and melodramatics sink the ship of state conflict.