The Film Daily (1919)

14 lAlLV Sunaay, July 6, 1919 Wild and Woolly Western Meller is Ordinary Program Stufi r^ Alma Rubens in "A Man*s Country" Winsome Stars Corp. — Robertson Cole — Exhr. Mutual DIRECTOR Henry Kolker AUTHOR John Lynch SCENARIO BY E. Richard Schayer CAMERAMAN Robert Newhard AS A WHOLE Wild and woolly Western meller just like scores of others; old stuff. STORY The usual tale of the dance=hall girl, the gambler and the parson; some nightmarish stuff rung in to give piece action. DIRECTION Responsible for several fairly tense sequences. PHOTOGRAPHY Good LIGHTINGS Good on night exteriors CAMERA WORK The usual thing STAR Generally pleasing; sometimes overreaches to score a point. SUPPORT Albert Roscoe a good enough parson; Lon Chaney a mean and wicked willun; others satisfactory. EXTERIORS Fair locations chosen; good West= ern town. INTERIORS Mostly same old dance hall DETAIL Watched carefully to keep atmosphere of the days of '49; some good types. CHARACTER OF STORY Shoot='em=up, helU roarin' stuff for most part. LENGTH OF PRODUCTION About 5,000 feet HERE'S another wild and woolly western so much like scores of others that the only claim it has to an identity of its own is its title and the players. Once again you have your old. old friends doing the same old things in the same old way. You have the scarlet dance-hall girl whose heart proves lily white after all; the bold, bad gambolier who is a wicked willun with a nasty nature: the young sky pilot who comes to clean up Hoxley's Gulch ; the square-dealin', straight shootin' marshal — and a host of others. And just to make things more "intrikut" in this one a pestilence is thrown in for good measure, which acts as an excuse for considerable physical action and which gives the parson and the girl a chance to learn each other's real selves and discover that they love each other. True, many of the types chosen to represent time-tried friends are good, but little attempt is made to make them do anything that hasn't been done time and time again. "A Man's Country" is just ordinary — quite ordinary — program stuff. It relies almost wholly for its appeal on its physical action, which becomes a bit nightmarish at times. It is the sort of stuff that the penny dreadfuls are filled with — lots of shootin', drinkin', gamblin" and hell-roarin' stuff in general. Alma Kubens is pleasing enough as the dance-hall girl, but once or twice she is inclined to over-reach in striving for a point. Albert Roscoe gives a very casual performance as the parson, except when he has an honest-to-goodness scrap with Lon Chaney, when lioth of them roll all over the floor for considerable footage. Chaney knows how to be a nasty willun, and his make up and facial expression in some of the fight close-ups would scare even good little boys and girls'. The picture's biggest points are reached during a sequence in which Alma gambles with Lon to see who will own the dance hall. These passages are quite tense. Also the fight between Chaney and Roscoe and Chaney's attack on Alma are melodramatically "thrilling." The action of the picture is laid in the gold-rush days of 1S49-1850, and the atmosphere of that period in the West is kept up throughout. There are the usual mob scenes in the dance-hall, which bring some fair types t<> the screen. Also there is some horseplay in certain of the dance-hall sequences that may get a few laugh.<. The fastest physical action comes when the folks from the valley flee the pestilence that spreads among them. There are some pretty fair scenes photographed at night in these passages — scenes showing the fearmaddened folks deserting their homes in a wild rush to the hills. Early in the picture Alma shows the sky pilot what she thinks of his efforts to bring the gospel to Huxley's Gulch. She does many things to hinder him and his work, but shows her real character when she takes under her wing the daughter of the murdered dance-hall proprietor. Later, when everybody but she and the minister have fled the plague, Alma also takes care of two deserted babies. It is when the parson and the girl are mutually responsible for the kids that they begin to have regard for each other. Chaney, who had been bested by Alma, comes back to the town raving mad and attacks Alma. He is torn ofl" by Roscoe, who gives Chaney considerable battle. Just when things look bad for the fighting parson Chaney is killed by a shot from the marshal's pistol, the latter having come to town just to see if anything was needed. Included in the cast are Joseph Dowling, Edna M-dv Wilson, Alfred Hollingsworth and Phil Gastrock. Will Go Well Only in Smaller Houses. Typical Western Box Office Analysis for the Exhibitor This is very ordinary program stuff. However, if ,vour crowd goes wild over this sort of a Western subject it will get by with them. Certainly it is no picture for an intelligent audience. It's so wild in spots that a highclass audience would give it the laugh several times. But to immature minds it might be exciting, and in a house where the audience is composed of the kind of folks who loudly cheer when the willun gets his just deserts it might go over fairly big. It is not always an easy matter to judge the drawing power of a star. The name of Alma Rubens is not so big just yet, and there are probably lots of folks who don't go to movies often who haven't heard much of her. She hasn't been in many pictures of late, and you may have a little trouble on that account. However, many of the fans who keep tabs on the players know of and like Alma quite well. She has been getting considerable publicity, which may help. In any advertising you might do tell your folks that you have a story of the West in the days when men lived life raw ; when a life was not held at very high value, etc. You probably have already played enough Westerns just like this one to have a fair idea of how it would go in your house. Suffice it to say that the picture certainly is true to type.