The Battle of the Sexes (1928 film)
The Battle of the Sexes is a 1928 American comedy film directed by D. W. Griffith, starring Jean Hersholt, Phyllis Haver, Belle Bennett, Don Alvarado, and Sally O'Neil, and released by United Artists. The film was a remake by Griffith of an earlier film he directed in 1914, which starred Lillian Gish. Both films are based on the novel "The Single Standard" by Daniel Carson Goodman; the story was adapted for this production by Gerrit J. Lloyd. The film was released as both a silent film, and in a sound version using the  Movietone sound-on-film system. In 2004, the film was released on DVD by Image Entertainment. The theme song of the motion picture, "Just a Sweetheart", by Dave Dryer, Josef Pasternack, and Nathaniel Shilkret (recorded versions of which are available, for example, on a commercially issued Paul Whiteman CD) was omitted from the DVD. Plot. Marie Skinner (Phyllis Haver) is a gold digger with her hooks out for devoted middle-aged family man J.C. Judson (Jean Hersholt), a portly real estate tycoon, who falls for her when she contrives to meet him. When his wife (Belle Bennett) and grown children , Ruth (Sally O'Neil) and Billy (William Bakewell) discover him dancing with Marie at a nightclub, J.C. leaves home the next day. Ruth seeks out Marie to shoot her, but is interrupted by Marie's boyfriend, jazz hound Babe Winsor (Don Alvarado), who takes a shine to her. When Judson walks in on them he condemns her licentiousness, but is forced to face his double standard when he witnesses a violent argument between Marie and Babe. Full of contrition, J.C. returns to home and hearth and the bosom of his loving family.