Poor Mr. Peck, a human bantam, is the meek and submissive husband of a giantess, who rules him with a tyrant's hand. Humble obedient for a while, he at last determines to burst asunder the chains of domesticity and become a "real sport." A mad rush from his home to the club, where he is engaged in a little game of poker, then, "Oh, look who's here!" Wifey appears. There is something doing, and Peck leaves by means of a rope fire-escape through the window. Mrs. Peck accelerates his descent by cutting the rope before Peck has made half the journey, and he falls with a thud to the sidewalk. He must have struck his bump of combativeness, for he still fights for liberty, and we next find him in a bowling alley. Here Mrs. Peck makes a record strike; not only knocking down all of the pins, but everything and everybody as well, in her wild endeavor to catch Peck. He, however, escapes to the pool parlor, but milady still pursues, and devastation marks her advent. From here he seems to have successfully eluded her and is seated in the front row of a vaudeville theater enjoying the sinuous gyrations of a Salome dancer. One of the veils falls lightly upon the shoulder of happy Peck, which is sharply contrasted by the fall of the bass fiddle on his head. It is needless to state that Mrs. Peck hovers over him. From the theater she drags Peck by the heels back to his happy home, where, in the last scene, she regales him with a version of the same dance he will never forget, though he may try.

Source: Moving Picture World

Some will contend that marriage is a failure, but in this case it has proved a grand success for us, as it has furnished material for a screaming comedy. Poor Mr. Peck, a human bantam, is the meek and submissive husband of a giantess, who rules him with a tyrant's hand. Humbie and obedient for a while, he at last determines to burst asunder the chains of domesticity and become a "real sport." A mad rush from his home to the club, where he is engaged in a lit tie game ot poker when "Oh, look who's here" - wifey appears. There is something doing, and Peck leaves by means of a rope fire-escape through the window. Mrs. Peck accelerates his descent by cutting the rope before Peck has made half the journey, and he falls with a thud to the sidewalk. He must have struck his bump of combativeness, for he still fights for liberty, and we next find him in a Bowling Alley. Here Mrs. Peck makes a record strike; not only knocking down all of the pins, but everything and everybody as well, in her wild endeavor to catch Peck. He, however, escapes to the Pool Parlor, but Miladi still pursues, and devastation marks her advent. From here, he seems to have successfully eluded her and is seated in the front row of a vaudeville theatre enjoying the sinuous gyrations of a Salome dancer. One of the veils falls lightly upon the shoulder of Happy Peck, which is sharply contrasted by the fail of the bass fiddle on his head. It is needless to state that Mrs. Peck hovers over him. From the theatre she drags Peck by the heels back to his happy home, where, in the last scene, she regales him with a version of the Salome Dance he will never forget, though he may try. This film is the superlative degree of farce comedy.

Source: American Mutoscope & Biograph Co. Bulletin no 99

In a twelve-minute short entitled If You Had A Wife Like This these sorts of cultural concerns are both amplified and brought even closer to the surface. The film opens as the browbeaten Peck is driven out of his home by his overbearing wife's repeated demands that he participate in household chores. (39) After nearly tracking him down in various "male spheres" (a card game at a restaurant, a bowling alley, and a pool hall), she finally catches him watching a balletic Salome dance. This Salome dance is a far cry from Hoffmann's purported aesthetic seriousness and upper-class lawn dances. In this version Salome is a home-wrecker performing a risque dance for leering male audience members who, like Peck, are eluding their wives and responsibilities. She is dangerous and shameful yet carefully contained both narratively and cinematically: as she dances alone on an elevated stage, dressed in a low-cut top and draped in veils, we as viewers, positioned in the midst of an entirely male audience, have little choice but to adopt the quintessential male gaze. Peck, seated on a stool right at the front with his elbows on the stage, is entranced, ready to catch her veil the moment she drops it to him. As viewers, our eyes are directed toward the show within the film, and it is easy to momentarily lose track of the outer narrative. But when Peck's wife storms into the theater a moment later, beating him over the head with everything in sight (including a conveniently positioned stand-up bass), the spell is broken. She drags him home and then, plot twist of plot twists, stages her own version of a Salome dance. Mixing jig steps, ungraceful jumps, unfortunately aimed kicks, and violent arm swings, Mrs. Peck eventually knocks her husband and his chair over backward to end the film. On its surface the dance seems humorous, a mix of burlesque and slapstick comedy that, as do The Salome Craze and The Saloon Dance, simply pokes fun at the dance's ubiquity, its "mad" amateur performers, and the unfortunate men who get trapped watching. Yet at the same time Mrs. Peck's "performance" is hardly a joke: spinning and kicking wildly, her movements are clearly purposeful and intentional. Dancing, Peck's wife is able to embrace and revel, unchallenged, in new levels of physicality and dominance. Indeed, the camera literally can't keep up with her fast and furious movements: arms and legs frequently blur across the screen, often falling outside of the shot. Just as Carolyn Abbate's Salome is afforded a powerful vocality by performance and musical text, then, the American Salome-as-danced manages here to trouble both her narrative and her cinematic frame, asserting her own creative voice and spectacular presence. In the end, If You Had A Wife Like This, despite its jokes and ridicule, is unable to completely check the power of the Salome dancer. Treading the line between humor and seriousness, Mrs. Peck, like so many of the dancing Salomes and like the imagined New Woman of American culture, evades authorial framing and, dancing her own dance, steals the show.

Source: The Free Library