Lady Windermere's Fan

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Directed by Ernst Lubitsch and adapted from the play by Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan stars May McAvoy as Lady Margaret Windermere, a happily-married society woman whose life is thrown into turmoil when she mistakes Mrs. Erlynne (Irene Rich), her birth mother, for a woman trying to win her husband's affection. When Lady Windermere rashly decides to leave her husband for the companionship of Lord Darlington (Ronald Colman), Mrs. Erlynne sacrifices her own social reputation to preserve that of her daughter. Lubitsch managed to translate Wilde's witty play into a successful silent film, one that bears his trademark "Lubitsch Touch."

Lady Windermere's Fan was added to the National Film Registry in 2002.

Watch it on Wikimedia Commons.

Tropes used in Lady Windermere's Fan include: