The Film Daily (1918)

Saturday, December 21, 1918 ►AIL.Y Mystery Crook Story Has a Wallop in Surprise Climax Harry Morey in "HOARDED ASSETS" Vitagraph DIRECTOR Paul Scardon. AUTHOR Raymond B. Spears. CAMERAMAN Not credited AS A WHOLE Crook me'ler with strong human interest element holds attention throughout. STORY Carefully developed to maintain suspense and withhold surprise climax for last seouence. DIRECTION Brings out telling points of plot and makes characters appear natural PHOTOGRAPHY Varies, generally clear; misses in night scenes at stage door. LIGHTINGS A bit harsh at times; night scenes need tuning down. CAMERA WORK Good STAR Gives virile nerformance in role to which he is well adapted. SUPPORT Betty Blythe and others satisfactory. EXTERTORS Suitable to story. INTERIORS . . Conventional. DKTAIL Care taken in registering small bits of busines that contribute to human mterest. CHARACTER O^ STORY Nothing to offend. LENGTH OF PRODUCTION About 4,500 ft. This isn't an O'Henry sfory, but it might have been. It has the kind of surprise climax for which O'Henry is famous, and the beauty of it is that the surprise is genuine. Nine out of ten of your folks will be f ken in completely and they'll enioy having been fooled. Hero Harry Morey. a crook that wins your sympathy, is caught with the goods by a detective. You don't want him to be punished, although he deserves it, and then the unexpected happens. His precious kegs of stolen gold turn out to be only kegs of sand. It's a good stunt as worked here, and I'll hand it to the author and director for putting it over smoothly. Hero Morey is a river pirate who makes a few honest dollars in the daytime, but does his real work after nightfall, when, under cover ocf the darkness, he boards shins anchored in the river and helps himself to articles of value. A sweetheart of his youth has become a stock actress in a nearby town which Morey visits in order to renew the acquaintance. Here they ring in some actress boarding house atmosphere which will take with the crowd. Also they lay the ground work for the plot by showirg how the river pirate is suspected by a detective who can't get anything on him, and how Morey overhears a conversation about the shipment of ten kegs of gold. The opportunity for a clean-up looks particularly inviting, especially as the crook hero has decided that his chances with shero Bettv Blythe will be greatly helped by a big bunch of coin. The weakest link in the plot is the failure to account for the shipment of such a valuable cargo in the haphazard fashion indicated by the ensuing scenes. Morey fills ten kegs with sand and has them placed on the dock at the time that the ke^s of gold are to be called for. The plan works smoothly and the crook steams off with the other ten kegs, supposedly containing gold, which he drops in the river near the bank. After marrying the actress there comes a time when he wants more cash. While drawing one of the kegs out of the river, the detective steps from the bushes and the game is .up But it isn't really up at all, for here they spring the climax which goes over big. Good acting, combined with able direction of a carefully developed story, goes to make this better than the average program offering. Miss Blvthe appears to advantage as the shero and others in the cast are George Majeroni, Robert Gaillard, and Jean Paige. ■' Promise Your Folks That Morey Has Right Kind of Play. They'll Like it Box Office Analysis for the Exhibitor. Here's a safe bet for a''y crowd interested in a good yarn which keeps "p the interest all the way and closes with a wallop. There aren't any too many pictures offering a surprise wind-up that hasn't been guessed by an audience Ions? before it happens, so T wouldn't let this slip by. Your folks will like the story for its own sake and they will take to it all the more because several of the characters are human all through. Pretty nearly everybody who qualifies as a fan knows Harry Morey and they will respond to this character of a crook who never seems actually criminal, even if his acts wouldn't stand exposure in a police court. Right row I have a notion that Morey has a bigger drawing power than lots of other stars whose names stand out larger in electric lights, so don't be afraid to give him plenty of boosting, declaring as emphatically as yon can put it that this picture shows him at his host. A lobby display not difficult to arrange might consist of small kegs placed in pyramid form with a placard on top reading: "The quicksands of gold. Come inside and see what Harry Morey realizes on his 'Hoarded Assets' ". This is a story that will los" half its punch if your folks fee it backwards, so try to arranee your program in a way that will prevent an audience from getting a' glimpse of the last sequences of the picture before they have seen the beginning. The title should attract some business in itself, in that it is suggestive of a number of possibilities in the way of a mystery story. You might use it in connection with some such catch line as this: "Supposing you1 buried your treasure in the water and found that it turned to sand. See Harry Morey's experience with ten kegs of gold, in his 'Hoarded Assets' ".