The Moving Picture Weekly (1916-1917)

18 THE MOVING PICTURE WEEKLY OOKING over the list of Universal's recent big special features, one cannot help being struck by their remarkable titles. "Where Are My Children?"—the most imitated title in the business — "The HandThat Rocks the Cradle," "God's Law," and now "Come Through" — every one of them carries a punch, or an appeal which makes for success, before anything is known about the picture at all. When "Come Through" was sent in from the Coast, it was called "Hands Up!" a good enough title in its way, but one which had already been recognized as such by a number of other people. R. H. Cochrane, who named all the winners mentioned above, by the way, saw the George Bronsou Howard creation in the projection room,^ and he said, says he: "I've got the title for that picture, and I've got a new angle for advertising it that will make the public sit up!" And that is how the latest Universal film baby was christened with a name which is one of the most arresting and the cleverest which has appeared in a dog's age. As for the advertising angle, it was so clever, so striking, and so "different," that it raised a little whirlpool of discussion even in the deep waters of the New York newspaper offices, and attracted pretty nearly as much attention as the picture itself. "Come Through" had notices in the critical New York press which are very, very far out of the ordinary. Some of them are going to be quoted here, though it would be easy to fill the entire space alotted to this story with the reproduction of them. But "Come Through" is the kind of a photoplay about which it is a pleasure to write, and I'm not going to give up all this nice white paper to quoting even New York reviewers. In the first place, there is one of the best stories ever filmed. It was written by George Bronson Howard,, who has filled up quite a lot of nice white paper on his own account, and who is ready to sigp and swear that this is the best "thriller" he ever perpetrated. Enough happens in seven reels to make a twenty episode serial, and the threads are so cunningly en tangled, that I believe the author himself had no idea how they were going to be straightened out again until he got to the very last scene. In the second place, reading from left to right, Herbert Rawlinson has tlie chance of his career in the role of James Harrington Court, alias The Possum, and he "comes through" in the most thoroughly satisfactory manner. You'll see what the highbrow critics say about him later on. And he has a fine cast to back up his efforts, headed by Alice Lake, one of the best dancers who ever tied a ribbon around her head and made her feet earn a living for her. Decidedly these two factors deserve first and second mention, but for third there are so many contenders that the task of apportioning the awards grows difficult if not impossible. Here is a synopsis of the events, as the Morning Telegraph summed them up: "Supposing you were a burglar on the trail of a $10,000 necklace. You broke into a house in search of yoiir prey and were confronted with a long deadly-looking gun. You were ordered to throw up your hands, brought before a minister and compelled to marry a handsome, intelligent-looking girl whom you had never set eyes on before. Just what would you have done? That is the situation into which James Harrington Court, played by Herbert Rawlinson, a gentleman burglar k Dancing known as "The Possum," scenes from was thrust one dark night. "Come Through."