Motion Picture Classic (Jan-Aug 1919)

Faire Binney offers a strong bit in the Civil War episode of Maurice Tourneur’s “Woman” The photoplay is taking a “much needed vacation.” Just at this moment the motion picture industry is passing thru the most remarkable period in its history. For the first time since the days of “The Great Train Robbery” studios are closed, actors are idle, the vk^hole screen world is at a standstill. The producers have declared a five weeks’ cessation of activities. The wave of Spanish influenza closed a large percentage of the country’s screen theaters, so the manufacturers — finding their market dwindling away — decided to close up shop until the germs moved on. We might attempt to be humorous and remark that, if some one could have abolished toothpicks, masked turnips, mimeographed movie press stories and war scenarios, our five weeks would have been perfect. It isn’t, of course, within the scope of this department to comment upon the shut-down. Altho* it cant be entirely disregarded. But we do hope the producers are spending the five weeks reading scenarios. To return to the screen : Charlie Chaplin came to town in “Shoulder Arms,” which, to us, is the one screen classic of the war. In fact, after watching Chapliti as a khaki hero, we can never take Norma Talmadgc isn’t in the least inspired in “The Forbidden City.” The old vividness is missing The Celluloid Critic another war 'drama seriously. Memories of Charlie drilling with the awkward squad, his well known feet the despair of a nerve-racked drill sergeant; of his combat with cooties; of Chaplin slumbering to sleep in a hut filled with mud and water; of But why spoil the joy of fans by telling the humorous twists of “Shoulder Arms”? Let it suffice to say that Charlie captures William Hohenzollern, the crown prince and Von Hindenbiirg with neatness and despatch. And if there’s any funnier scene than the episode where Chaplin camouflages himself as a tree and is pursued by a fat and worried Hun thru a forest, we would like to see it. There isn’t a single dull second in “Shoulder Arms,” which shows in many ways just why Chaplin maintains his amazing grip upon the affections of fans. First, the comedian takes months to make three reels of comedy, developing his fun carefully, discarding here and building up there. He doesn’t rush his productions out. He whets interest and has the public waiting for him. Secondly, he never duplicates. Every comedy is different, not only as to action, but characterization. All this in comment upon his business acumen. Above all else, Chaplin is a truly great actor. He is human— touching when he wishes to be. His little soldier in “Shoulder Arms” isn’t a mere merry manikin going thru a maze of comedy situations. He is a human figure, sometimes even a pathetic one. Audiences do not merely laugh at him. They love him. Some one has said that Bruce Bairnsfathcr’s cartoon character. Ole Bill, personifies the British Tommy’s spirit in the war. Charlie Chaplin’s little soldier certainly personifies the American view of the struggle. “Shoulder Arms” marks the last appearance of Edna Purviance opposite Chaplin. And his brother, Syd, returns to the films as a bunkie. The single other interesting event of our month was the admirable Maurice Tourneur’s odd episodic production, “Woman.” Mr. Tourneur, we are quite sure, started out ruthlessly to show the havoc women have wrought thru history, but that he tempered his idea the last moment, by showing the changes the war has created in femininity. Anyway, Mr. Tourneur built “VV’oman” in a prolog, an epilog and five episodes. These five deal with Adam and Eve and the more or less well known apple; the Roman Emperor, Claudius, and his wife, the dissolute Messalina; the affair of the monk, Abelard, and the beauteous Heloise, which must have won a whole page in the magazine section of the medieval American; a fanciful Brittany coast legend of a mermaid and a fisher lad ; and a Civil War episode in which a girl, for the gift of a little watch, gives a poor wretch to a firing squad. The prolog and epilog reveal the evolution of a modern butterfly into a Red Cross nurse. “Woman,” as one might expect of Tourneur, is a thing of rare screen beauty. Once or twice it reaches genuine heights, as in the poetic “Such a Little Pi charm of the Brittany interlude rate” rather dis and the quick grip of the story of counted our first 1864. One newspaper commentator impressions truthfully remarked that Tourof Lila Lee neur had conjured a series of (Forty-eiphi )