The Film Daily (1919)

Sunday, July 6, 1919 sM^ DAILV Mostly Comedy but Some Meller Action in Fast-Moving Film Dorothy Green and Arthur Ashley in "The American Way" World DIRECTOR Frank Reicher AUTHOR Florence C. Bolles SCENARIO BY Wallace C. Clifton CAMERAMAN Max Schneider AS A WHOLE Looks like popular stuff with a fan crowd that enjoys a fast=moving story containing comedy and meller of the obvi= ous sort. STORY Indicates careful preparation, but does not keep the situations from havinj; the ap= pearance of being "planted." DIRECTION Gives speed and directness to the action; some spots a bit crude. PHOTOGRAPHY Generally clear LIGHTINGS Well judged with a few exceptions CAMERA WORK Some good shots from difticult angles. STARS Arthur Ashley acts with spirit in ,-:on= genial role; Dorothy Green is passable, but nothing more. SUPPORT Large cast in which Ed Roseman, Robert Fisher, Harry Semels and others give acceptable performances. EXTERIORS Lumber camp scenes afford the best chance for picturesque effe^jts. INTERIORS Satisfactory studio work DETAIL Considering that the scene shifts from London to Long Island and then to a lum== ber camp, the director was successful in avoiding anachronisms. CHARACTER OF STORY Romantic adventure with a comedv foundation. LENGTH OF PRODUCTION About 4,800 feet DESPITE the obviousness of much of this story, the convenient way in whicli many of the situations are "planted," and the lack of fine shadings either in the characterization or production. "The American Way" is a first-rate picture of its type. The plot is ample in affording complications, variety of scene and in making it possible to shift from a comedy mood, which dominates through most of the picture, to passages of out-and-out meller, such as those towards the close of the story when Hero Arthur Ashley cleans up a gang of crooks in a lumber cam]). The safest way to make an English nobleman the hero of an American story is to endow him with char acteristics more aggressively American than those usually met in our most democratic circles, and that was ,iust the course followed by the author of "The American Way." Ashley's independence is accounted for by his having an American mother from whom he is supposed to inherit a dislike for the traditional ways of English society. Parts of the opening reels revealing the escapade leading to the young Englishman being shipped to America by his indignant father are rather farfetched, but they answer a purpose by accounting for Arthur's adopting the name of Smithers of Yonkers when he reaches this side to visit an aunt and uncle. The more essential passages of the story begin with the youth's adventures after he hits New York. Coincidence always stands as a prompter at the elbow of the director. It accounts for Arthur's taking a joy tide through the park at just the time that Dorothy Green allows her pet cat to wander up a tree from which it refuses to descend. Arthur climbs to the rescue and then Dorothy conveniently drops a handbag containing a card which identifies her as the ward of the relatives whom the Englishman is about to visit. He happens to have a hunch that Doi-othy has little use for foreign noblepien, and equally he is convinced that he is ready to fall in love with her. Figuring that his best chance is to win out in the good old American way, meaning through a display of merit, he hides his identity, presenting the card of John Smithers, a crook that had robbed him on his last London adventure. Then, still under the assumed name. Arthur gets a job in his uncle's office and makes good so fast that he is sent to the lumber camp to find out what is wrong with the workmen. From here on the action becomes more melodramatic, with Arthur in charge of the camp, pitted against a gang of consfnrators headed by Ed Roseman. Dorothy, overturned in a canoe, is in danger of being swept into a log jam when she is rescued by the Johnny-on-the-spot hero, who has yet another chance to prove his fearlessness by preventing the dynamiting of a bridge at the time a train-load of lumber is passing over it. These scenes are worked up to a fairly exciting climax. For a final twist in the plot, Arthur is about to be arrested on the assumption that he is the crook John Smithers when his father makes a timely journey from London and identifies him. The cast includes Caul Sauerman, Charles Wellsley, John Adrizdui and Hazel Sexton. HERBERT E. HANCOCK No'w Directing VIOLET MERSEREAU in "Love \A/ins ' H. £r H. PRODUCTIONS, Inc. 516 Fifth Avenue, N. Y. C. 11 IE