John Miljan — Gambling for Freedom…! (1934) 🇺🇸
Your wife doesn’t even have to be in the country, if you follow John Miljan’s formula for freedom. Visualize the advertisements! “Reduce your marital woes. No pills — no pain. Dr. Miljan’s prescription guaranteed or money refunded.”
by Jack Grant
You know John Miljan as the perpetrator of screen villainies. He is best known in Hollywood as a liberator of married men, an emancipator of henpecked husbands.
It is doubtful if John realized the import of his discovery when the formula was evolved, for it began very casually.
John and Mrs. Miljan had friends in for a quiet evening of bridge. John won and his wife lost. When the game ended, John demanded that Mrs. Miljan pay her gambling debt.
“I must borrow from you,” she laughed. “I have no money. You might as well transfer the amount from one pocket into another and we’ll call it square.”
“Now is that right?” John protested. “If I lose, I pay. Winning, I break even.”
“It’s your fault for being the family’s only wage-earner, John.”
“There’s no consolation in suffering for a virtue,” John said.
So the argument raged. Mrs. Miljan offered her wedding ring for security. She thought of things she might do for her husband in lieu of actual cash. But John was adamant.
As a last resort, Mrs. Miljan suggested, “Suppose I give you a day to do just as you please. You can go fishing or anywhere you desire. Will that satisfy you, Shylock?”
“A day of freedom,” John mused. “No explanations. It’s a bargain.”
Credit a man who knows when opportunity knocks and invites it in!
The Miljans bet upon any number of things, but mostly bridge. When they are alone, they play two-handed contract. If John loses, his wife collects the cash. If John wins, she adds the time in hours and minutes to his score. Deductions are made, as spent, from the time he has coming, but he is never allowed to draw in advance.
The only difference of opinion that has ever arisen came one night when John went to a prize fight with Wallace Beery. He was five hours ahead of the game and was gone nearly six. Mrs. Miljan inquired where he had been. John protested.
“I wasn’t asking about the first five hours,” she said. “Only the last one. You were fifty-five minutes late.”
This incident brought a new rule into effect. Time is clocked for the full period John is away from home.
“What If I want to go to Caliente?”
“You travel on your own time.”
Mrs. Miljan has observed the agreement that prohibits her from asking questions concerning her husband’s whereabouts when free, for good sportsmanship on the part of the wife is imperative to the success of the Miljan’s freedom formula.
—
Collection: Modern Screen Magazine, January 1934
—
- 1934–01 — Evelyn Brent
- 1934–01 — Cora Sue Collins
- 1934–01 — David Manners
- 1934–01 — John Miljian