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In scene after scene, Old Wives for New (1918) must have startled its original audiences. The old wife, grown fat and slovenly, eats bonbons and reads the Bible while ignoring her family. The new wife is no innocent flower but a successful, independent businesswoman. An old roue leaves his own wife at home while he dallies with young gold diggers who have a most casual attitude toward their unconventional lifestyles. The film even suggests divorce as a possible solution to irreconcilable differences in marriage. This film so shocked Paramount's head, Adolph Zukor, that he was opposed to releasing it at all (but relented when a test screening proved it would make money). In fact, it created a sensation and led directly to the social comedies director Cecil B. DeMille made in the early 1920s. With this film DeMille closed the door on the innocent years and ushered in the jazz age.