Clever Mrs. Carfax (1917)

Julian Eltinge was a hugely popular and famous female impersonator on stage and in film.

Here he plays Temple Trask, a newspaper publisher with an agony aunt column that he writes under the pseudonym "Mrs. Carfax". At a college reunion, he is telling his old friend Billy Wise, that he could definitely pass as a woman. Inevitably a wager is agreed, and Trask agrees: he has to appear in women's clothing in public.

While doing so, he stumbles across the wicked Adrian Graw attempting to seduce his sweetheart, Helen Scott, and to extract some savings from her. Trask decides to rectify matters and the best way to do so is to continue in female clothing.

As far as I know, none of Eltinge's films have survived. This second picture is of the director (Donald Crisp), Eltinge and Cecil B de Mille in a break during shooting.

The film was also released as All He Knew About Women and The Amazing Lover and Tricks of the Sex and Unlike Other Girls.

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