Photoplay (Sep - Dec 1918)

The Shadow Stage 77 nocent, as devoid of heart and real morale as many a real-life doll, selected by a roue — enacted with some considerable charm by Lew Cody — as his current or series adventure. The purpose of Miss Weber's finely photographed and elegantly mounted tableaux is to show this child eternally on the verge of the precipice, but never falling over. Her feet begin to slip at last, and when the unsatisfied Don Juan devises a little amateur show in which the characters are too plainly himself, the lady and her husband, and the action the complete consummation of the deviltry he planned but fell down on, we feel quite sure that the balked villain will get his revenge: a murder at home or a scandal in court. In fact the heartless but scared little girl thinks so, too — until the husband, in the final footage, confesses that he went to sleep and missed the whole pantomime! It must be admitted that Channing Pollock will like this a lot better than Susie Siwash, who's just gotta have a little love at the end ; nevertheless, here is a fillip for your brains, on the screen. As devised, the trick finish seems a bit light to carry all that went before. WE CAN'T HAVE EVERYTHING— Artcraft The finest cast of the year; intelligent detail at once evincing humanity and good breeding; splendid mounting and fine direction; a story which is real and characterful. It is certainly all of these, although the photodrama is by no means the equal of Rupert Hughes' novel. It couldn't be, for that novel, more than anything else of Hughes, was didactic and analytical rather than dramatic. The theatric lapses in Mr. Hughes' long and patient character studies have been supplied with a bit of mechanical plot here and there, and, strange to say, two or three of the author's very few sharp spots have been left out altogether in the transplanting. New York scenes, it seems to me, have never been so wonderfully reproduced. DeMille's vision of the Biltmore Cascades is more than scenery — it might be that great salon of the dance itself. Kathlyn Williams is the very Charity Cheever of the author's imagination — ■ a fine and brainy piece of acting; Elliott Dexter, heavily impressive as Jim Dyckman; Sylvia Breamer, sensuous and exquisite as Zada L'Etoile; Wanda Hawley, blondly pretty as the light-headed, Kitty. Theodore Roberts, Thurston Hall and Raymond Hatton figure in the play, too. Here the Lasky firm Hooverized its own fire; you'll see it acting in these scenes. TOTON— Triangle Olive Thomas' new picture, "Toton," is the best thing she has ever done. It is the story of a little French girl who becomes the more or less conventional model for an American artist. She marries him, and has a child — but there the story has only started. The artist is called home by the death of his mother, and his father, taking advantage of circumstances, persuades the young man to stay with him, and has lawyers annul the marriage in Paris. The model eventually dies, but not until her baby, Toton, has been born, and is entrusted to a friend who is an Apache. So Toton grows up to impersonate a boy, and be an Apache; and Toton's father, growing to middle age alone, does not marry, but adopts a son. When the war breaks out that son comes to France with American troops, and, on leave, searches out his father's old acquaintances. He meets Toton the gamin under untoward circumstances — and the romantic end is in sight. A story well told, with Miss Thomas in the dual character exhibiting real faculties of pathos, characterization and emotion. Norman Kerry, as the artist and then the father, is correspondingly effective. The direction is Frank Borzage's, and the story was written by Catherine Carr. The photography is so good that it is absolute poetry of vision. Carmel Myers is both an Oriental and an old-fashioned beauty in "The Dream Lady," which starts better than it finishes. i p^ ~ "jIsM ~x4jg9fl| jar ^> SwT' • ■ ^Tr3Bf /l|ft^^ ' \" -**. f \ ^^^^f' f \ : •&*¥ * \tir \ % xmi 'The Girl from Bohemia" has an especial interest in that it marks the conclusion of Irene Castle's present photoplay acting. In "Cactus Crandall" Roy Stewart turns author as well as actor. The play is his first.