A Woman's Fool

Lin McLean is a restless cowboy who leaves his range for Denver and falls for Katie, a waitress who promises marriage. He follows her back to the ranch only to learn a traveling rainmaker is in town, and Katie reveals the rainmaker is already married to her, then leaves with him. Lin later adopts Katie's abandoned son Billy after visiting Denver at Christmas. Time passes and Lin meets station agent Jessamine "Jessie" Buckner, whom he marries, building a domestic life with Billy. When Katie returns, determined to escape her neglectful husband and win Lin, her presence drives Jessie away. Faced with the consequences of her choices, Katie takes her own life, allowing Jessie to return and the family to reunite.

Released in 1918, A Woman's Fool was directed by John Ford and draws on material by Eugene B. Lewis and Owen Wister. The silent Western stars Harry Carey, Bette Schade and Molly Malone, early collaborators in Ford's career, among others.

Contemporary box office records for A Woman's Fool are incomplete, and no reliable worldwide gross survives. As a 1918 silent release its commercial footprint is hard to reconstruct, with exhibition and revenue details largely lost to history or trade reports.

As one of John Ford's early Westerns with Harry Carey, A Woman's Fool helped shape themes Ford returned to later, like rugged masculinity, solitary heroism and complex romantic choices. The film is often cited in academic histories of silent Westerns, even if it remains little seen by general audiences today.

Modern user ratings are sparse, the film holding a 4.0/10 average from two votes, while contemporary reviews are scarce. Viewers report a melodramatic tone focused on restlessness, unexpected parenthood, romantic rivalry and moral consequence, with an emphasis on how personal choices reshape small community ties and domestic life and period sensibilities.