The Film Daily (1918)

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Sunday. September 15, 1918 Tfc)jj?*t AIL.Y 13 Pleasing Star in Plotless Potpourri Helped by Cameraman Kathleen Clifford in "ANGEL CHILD" Plaza — Hodkinson DIRECTOR Henry Otto STORY Carl Mclnroy CAMERAMAN Joseph Brotherton AS A WHOLE Hopeless conglomeration of discon= nected incidents which fail to make sense, with star doing everything the director could think of. STORY They must have "thought it up out of their own heads" as they went along. DIRECTION Had star doing everything from bad young girl to good old girl; never attempted to make this convincing or consistent and re= peatedly allowed wild jumps in story without explanation. < PHOTOGRAPHY Very fine on exteriors; lifted production decidedly. Mirror shots excellent. LIGHTINGS Generally very good although at times too harsh on faces. CAMERA WORK Very good STAR Pretty and has cute tricks though hardly got over as "child." SUPPORT All the "Grip of Evil" gang; Fred Church "acted." EXTERIORS Generally very pleasing. INTERIORS Rather good for Balboa with familiar "Who is Number One" set figuring promi= nently. DETAIL As Rube Goldberg would say, "They never thought of that." CHARACTER OF STORY. . . Harmless bunch of fooI= ishness. LENGTH OF PRODUCTION 5,130 feet MAYBE they figured that this was just a bunch of nonsense that would get by — and maybe it will — but it certainly is an awful mess from a standpoint of story and production. The way this has been produced looks like they had cooked it up as they went along and had stuck in everything they could think of whether it had anything to do with the cent nil idea — if they had one when they started or cot. After opening this up with a Keystone gag of Shero turning the hose on her father and her mother's guests they sent Kathleen away to the old standby of the ItemLngton athletes, the girl's school. This permitted of the usual pillow fights and several forced attempts at comedy and in order to bring Hero into the story, they had the whole gang, including the matron, rush outside in their pajamas, where Hero had been planted. Shero pretends to faint in his arms, she does, and after she is back in bed again we get a vision of her dreaming that she is an actress. This was by far the best part of the offering, although there was no reason for it being brought in. as it enabled Miss Clifford to look pretty in niftick clothes and showed us thai she could "deliver" if given a story. Next day Shero runs away and crawls in the back of an auto, which starts away. From here we cut abruptly to Shero in her own home phoning, although howin'ell she got there we never find out. Then, just to show us that little things like this didn't worry them, they cut abruptly again to a close-up of Shero made up as a wench, with no explanation as to where, why or when she came on to the make-up. Then we have a lot of forced business where she waits on table after which she again meets Hero in her father's garden. They have her conveniently overhear her father remarking about the disappearance of a letter and she remembers of having unwittingly carried the letter to school with her after which it had been "accidentally" found by the daughter of the man whom it implicated. Then she goes to Gilfeather's house to get the letter back and after marvelously running all over the house without being seen. Danny leaves his coat on a chair so Shero can get the letter and after a lousy struggle between Danny's gang and Hero, who was brought in for the purpose. Hero and Shero escape with the letter. Later we have Hero asking Shero, "Will she?" and she takes his cane and writes "Yes" in the sand (in a close-up), although there was nothing but grass in the long shot that preceded it. Truly, "they do it in the 'movies'." The titles were painfully crude and missed badly in an attempt at comedy. Others who "worked" in this were: Rita Harlan, Daniel Gilfeather. Neill Hardin, Leslie Peacocke. Gordon Sackville, and Fred Church.