Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1919)

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78 Photoplay Magazine Pinna Nesbit, in "Bolshevism on Trial," a po-»erful, %vell-knit, biting satire, containing" both argument and drama. Harry Morey in his latest V^itagrapli offering, "Fighting Destiny." 'As a Man Thinks," the picturization o£ Augustus Thomas' play, features Leah Baird. gives a very good performance he does not fill the part iti appearance, for Capt. O'Keefe was an adroit soldier of fortune as mature in years as in experience; and Robert Ellis is patently a very young man. Rosemary Theby is a very handsome Betty, and director Giblyn has surpassed even his former record for beautiful "shots," and fine grouping. I recall especially a vision of a cliff's edge framed in the dark branches of a gnarled tree, which would delight any painter as a matter of composition. MARY REGAN^First National This photoplay is a combination of a popular story, director Marshall Neiian, and a most surprisingly new lot of California locations, thus proving that an expert can always work some novelty in an old field. Those Alpine Tavern visions, entrancing as they are, have been there all the time, just waiting for somebody to grab them and put them in the black box. Miss Anita Stewart plays the well-raised daughter of a crook: a daughter who has determined to go straight, notwithstanding the damning inheritance that hangs over her. George Hernandez, as a master-blackmailer, is perhaps best of all in her support. The picture is an adventure, indeed, but it is an adventure amid the elegancies of life — rosewood rather than benches, Limoge raiher than granite-ware, curtains of rose-silk rather than cracked shades, pleasant music rather than the sounds of the street. It is as brilliant in photography as it is in setting. The suspense is very well maintained, and in fact not until the very last scene when there is a confusing and over-done fight, is there an inkling of any solution to Mary Regan's problem. THE STRONGER VOW— Goldwyn Just a flash of Spain, but it's Spain all through, in this modern story of Machiavelhan plot and counter villainy, and it is magnificently acted by Geraldine Farrar, Milton Sills, Tom Santschi and Hassard Short. Reginald Barker's direction is on a par with the performances of the principals, and is no doubt largely responsible for their zest and finely concerted work. Miss Farrar plays the daughter of a grandee loved by the heir of a house with whom her house is at war — a sort of Capulet and Montague feud, as it were. Comes a third party — played by the towering bad man Mr. Santschi — who' murders the prima-donna's brother and contrives to pile the crime up on the door-step of the real lover, enacted by Mr. Sills. The author very deftly contrives a departure for the hero on the night of this assassination. He is sent to Paris, and the denouement is laid far from the first fete of oranges and blood. The second fine contrivance in the play, the really human probability of the villain's circumventing himself, comes when the wicked Santschi wrongs the sister of his Apache assistant, played by Hassard Short. Apache Shorr therefore turns what was intended as the hero's murder into a carnival of personal vengeance and all is well except with the wicked. It is only melodrama, but on the part of the star and most of her support it is put across with a fiery exaltation that makes it worth-while entertainment. THE GIRL FROM THE MARSH CROFT— Swedish Biograph I approached this exhibition knowing nothing about it except what I read on the billboards. These featured two names: the name of the play, and the name of Selma Lagerlof. Imagine my astonishment, as the narrative began to unravel, to discover that Selma Lagerlof was not the leading woman, but the author! (I suppose I should have remembered that she is the only woman ever awarded the Nobel prize in literature, but I didn't.) In Sweden, at least, the long-buffeted author seems to be getting a few just deserts. This dramatization of Mme. Lagerlof's novel of the same name is the story of Helga, a wronged country girl. Do not, however, imagine that the producers built a regulation movie upon this base. Their story is one of psychology rather than of unusual circumstances— it is just the sort of story one would expect to come from Scandinavia, and deals with a revolution of thought processes rather than a lot of cheap justifications and goldplated redemptions. (Continued on page 102)