Exhibitors Herald and Moving Picture World (Oct-Dec 1928)

October 6. 1928 EXHIBITORS HERALD and MOVING PICTURE WORLD 53 W SERVICE TALKS Incorporated in this department of Exhibitors Herald, which is a department containing news, information and gossip on current productions, is the Moving Picture W orld department, "Through the Box Office Window." D EAR FOLKS: I believe you will be interested in a communication received this morning from Mr. M. R. Blair, of the Iowa Theatres Company, who operates the Regent theatre in Cedar Falls, Iowa. Mr. Blair has ringed, in ink, the personal pronoun "1"' as it appears — 16 times — on this page of the September 29 issue. Then, in the upper left hand corner of the page, Mr. Blair has written, "Let's have less of this I stuff and more service.*' That i? what I call constructive criticism. I get a kick out of it. (That I get a greater kick out of hearing from Mr. Blair, who was a promising young fellow learning the business under his father's tutelage when I was a less promising young fellow trying to make the opposition theatre — now a garage or something — pay its overhead during five swift weeks of 1914, "15 or '16, is entirely a personal matter.) I should pass Mr. Blair's comment with a smile, or reply directly through established channels, if it did not raise a somewhat important point which I haven't brought up for several weeks. The fact that I used the personal pronoun 46 times in a page of comment seems to prove that I am still hitting a pretty fair average and have not strayed far from the original in-tructions governing conduct of this page. They were, as I have frequently stated, to "write personal, one-man opinions about pictures; do not mnew pictures, predict box office returns or attempt to set yourself up as an expert, oracle or genius." I was told, "if you could predict the box office value of motion pictures you would be too busy getting rich to have time for writing about pictures or any. thing else." You recall, if you're a veteran reader of this journal, that a nine-year attempt to accurately forecast the performance of motion pictures led to the discovery that it can't be done. (Of course anybody would have discovered it sooner if they'd really thought into the matter, but no one did.1 And you recall that this page came into existence after announcement of that discovery. In this space, then as now, an individual— in this case I — states his reactions to various pictures, just as your friend tells you he did or didn't like a certain picture, and thi individual opinion is worth no more to you than your friend's. I If you are entirely honest with yourself, you know you don't think much of your friend's opinion — except when it coincides with your own — now do you? | T. O. Service Well, to get on — Mr. Blair shows that I'm doing very well. If I mentioned myself 46 times in a page I can hardly mislead my readers into thinking I am speaking for anyone but myself. I thank you, Mr. Blair, and give my love to all the lady school teachers. (With 19 I's to this point I feel I'm still doing as well as I'd expect another to do. And there's four more, making 23.) •WIN THAT GIRL' D ONT worry about this one. folks. It is, as you've guessed or been told, another football picture; but it is not the old hokum again. This one is a football picture kidding football pictures — if I have not read into it anything which isn't there — and a corking good job is done of it. There's the winning of the game for the finish, of course, handled much as it was in "The Freshman," but that is a minor matter. The real substance of the picture i; the comedy and there is plenty of that. The two families constituting the principal cast are supposed to have been football enemies since 1890. And so football is shown as it wa* played in 1890, in 1905, and in 1928. There is historical interest in it, too, for people who car>' for historical interest, but the comedy is the pose at all times and at all costs. "THE SCARLET WOMAN" If there is anything more interesting in pictures than Russia it is more Russia. "The Scarlet Woman"' is more Russia. Indeed, it is more Russia than any half-dozen Russian pictures you will encounter in a week's work of picture gazing. It is Russian in subject, in spirit, and there is even a Russian tinge to the arrangement of its sequences and the manner of its performance. This time the Russia is that of the period immediately preceding and immediately following the overthrow of the Romanoffs. The overthrow, of course, is there also, and a headlong, bloody thing it is. And accurate? Why, there are even inserts of actual footage from the scene itself — and they blend with the stuiiio stuff without a discord. "The Scarlet Woman"' is played by Lya De Putti. Next in cast importance is Warner Oland. There are several others. All are good. The picture is excellent. "WATER FRoyr' F^OR the second time this month, San Francisco is made the scene of a play. And for the second time this month it affords a pleasant and colorful background for the things done. This time the things done are done by Jack Mulhall and Dorothy Mackaill and they are, as in '"The Fleet's In," interesting things pertaining to the sea and seamen. Miss Mackaill. who is carried along in this as in most of her pictures by the agile and fleet Mr. Mulhall, is a water front lassie who likes it. Jack is a sailor man who doesn't. The argument is, first, whether they'll marry: second, whether they'll live on a farm and have six babies or on the briny and so forth. To persuade the young woman to his way of thinking, and her father's, the sailor man feigns a kidnapping, people are beaten up, and of course the farm is upheld as the more suitable place for the upbringing of a half-dozen youngsters. There are several good things in the picture and several that are not good. It flops a little at the finish, but everything is in fun anyway and it doesn't matter much. The gag captions are depended upon for most of the humor and, as is usually the case under these circumstances, it is of variable quality. ■CAUGHT IN THE FOG" CoNRAD NAGEL, May McAvoy, Mack Swain and some other people talk intermittently during the course of "Caught in the Fog," a picture which is probably pretty good. It was badly interfered with in its Chicago theatre exhibitiou last night by the unexplained dousing of the light for a period of six or seven minutes, during which the musical accompaniment continued to a dark screen. The portion skipped was no re-run and so there is some doubt in the minds of those present as to how the pearls got from where they were to where they got to. The yarn is one of those mystery things about the thieves who try to fool each other, each thinking to obtain the jewels, while comic detectives hold the principal interest. The music is, of course, "sneaky" music, which didn't help matters during the blackout. The scene is a houseboat in Florida waters and it might as well have been any other place, so far as the story is concerned, but this is a pleasant variation. In all probability it is a very good crook mystery comedy when it is projected as it should be projected. No blood is shed.