Henry James

The Reverberator Henry James

Here's a comedic James, who deplored the media, about a match that may be ruined by a gossip column. George Flack is the Paris correspondent for an American scandal sheet called The Reverberator. Francie Dosson, a pretty but not always tactful American girl, confides to Flack some gossip about the Proberts, the Frenchified (but originally American) family of her fiancé, Gaston Probert. Predictably to everybody except Francie, the nasty gossip winds up in The Reverberator, much to the horror of the stuffy Proberts. Francie makes no attempt to hide her role in giving Flack the juicy details. Gaston is initially dismayed by his fiancée's indiscretions. But with the somewhat surprising support of his sister Suzanne, he decides to accept Francie, who never tries to shift the blame to Flack. Gaston stands up to the outraged members of his family and marries his fiancée.