The film tells the story of a noble but poor woman who arrives at Boston in the 17th century. There she marries an old but quite rich doctor but does not become happy.

Gregory La Cava directs this comedy of errors, starring W.C. Fields as a hen-pecked, inebriated inventor who triumphantly creates unbreakable windshield glass while struggling to gain the respect of his social-climbing daughter and nagging wife.

Broken Fetters is a 1916 American silent comedy written and directed by Rex Ingram. Violet Mersereau played the lead role. The film was shot in Fort Lee, New Jersey where Universal Studios and other early film studios in America's first motion picture industry were based at the beginning of the 20th century.