The Photo-Play Journal (Jul 1919-Feb 1921)

July, igig PHOTO-PLAY JOURNAL 47 Valentine." This capable actor takes full advantage of his every opportunity with a deliberation, and at the same time a restraint, which stamps him as a true artist having an exact knowledge of dramatic proportions. The story is of decided dramatic tendencies, and the locale is the mysterious sands of Soudan. Mr. Warner is seen in a dual role, first as Ali Zaman, the renegade white man leader of an Arabian band, and then as Captain Band, an officer who was cashiered from the army for assuming the responsibility for a bitter charge which should have rested on another's shoulders. As the leader of the marauding band of Arabian plunderers and murderers, the star gives a strikingly colorful characterization. In fact, he so completely hides his own personality that it is really difficult to believe he is not really the terrible man he portrays. One honor which should go to "The Man Who Turned White" is that it possesses more than its share of the proverbial "punches." In fact, it is just one "punch" after another, and it will, no doubt, prove ideal diversion for a very vast majority of the devotees to the screen art extraordinary. ♦ •qTRUE HEART SUSIE," one of David W. * Griffiths' latest Artcraft pictures, will not injure this master wizard's reputation any, for he has not failed to place the very visible earmarks of his directorial skill upon this production. It is a beautiful pastoral romance exerting an intense heart appeal, which is heightened in the manner of treatment and the careful attention to little details which always count so prodigiously in the aggregate. Lillian Gish, in the title role, takes one more long step towards proving that she is one of the greatest artists ever developed under the Griffiths banner, while Robert Harron again distinguishes himself in his support of her. The story unfolded in this excellent photoplay is well worth telling in some detail, and it follows : Susie May Trueheart, a delightfully awkward, straight forward, true-hearted girl of Hoosier county, loves, with steadfast loyalty, William Jenkins, her boy neighbor across the way. At the little country school house she watches, adoringly, his every move, and suffers untold agonies when, because she is a better speller, she has to go above him. A small, live politician, looking after his fences as he passes through the town, calls William a bright lad, and half promises — in his desire to impress the simple country folk — to give the boy a start in life. Through the months that follow, William and Susie await the fulfillment of the promise that was not made to be kept, looking for the letter that never comes. At last Susie decides for herself that William must not be disappointed ; she determines that the man she is to marry must be educated ; William is the man she is going to marry ; she herself will send him to school. She confides her plans to the spinster aunt with whom she lives. Auntie is quite unenthusiastic. But since the farm and everything on it was left to Susie by her mother, the girl has her way. The accumulated butter and egg money, the small amounts saved for luxuries, finally the cow, go to swell the fund that is to give William his start. Of all these sacrifices, William knows nothing. When at last a letter arrives with money orders and a receipt from the nearby country college for a year's tuition, he takes it for granted — through his transports of delight — that the gift is from the self-styled philanthropist of the year before. William goes through college. He is ordained a minister. Through the years Susie waits for him, whole-heartedly, treasuring each of the few letters that he sends her, and finding crumbs of comfort in such non-committal phrases as : "So far, I haven't met anybody I like better than the people at home." It is after William's return home that Susie's life tragedy occurs. The young man, selfconsciously important as the newly appointed minister of the home church, falls head-over heels in love with Bettina Hopkins, a lightheaded little butterfly from the next town, and marries her. Hiding her heavy heart beneath a smile of sacrifice that illumines her serious little face, Susie carries flowers at the simple country wedding. Following the marriage, matters at the parsonage do not progress smoothly. William finds that the girl of his dreams is a different being in real life. Curl papers take the place of curls, and interest in stories drives out interest in preparing meals. Vaguely, William realizes that he has made a mistake — that in Susie, and not Bettina, he might have found his true mate. But it is too late now. Sadly, when he finds Susie looking at some letters in a hidden nook, he asks her if she is thinking of getting married, and advises her to be sure and find the right Dorotny Dalton In a Scene In "Other Men's Wives" man. He fails utterly to sense that the letters Susie is reading, are his own — letters from the only man she can ever love. Bettina sees occasionally, members of the little fast set of the near-by town, whom she knew before her marriage. She dances with a former beau, Sporty Malone, and receives his kisses. But when William returns unexpectedly, convinces him that he was entirely mistaken in what he thought he saw. Later, Bettina attends a dance with Sporty and is caught in the rain on the way home, only to find — drenched and shivering— that she has lost her key and cannot get back into the house unobserved. In desperation she goes to Susie and is taken in for the night. Susie, torturing her own heart, keeps Bettina's secret — and again William is deceived. But the cold proves serious. It settles in the girl-wife's lungs, and dances poor Bettina down into the Shadowy Halls of death. With her last words she tries to confess to William, but is unable, even then, to tell him the truth, dying as she had lived, a little unfaithful. After she has passed away, William begins the mistaken task of enshrining her in his memory — to the exclusion of any other love. Then, in time, he learns the truth that Bettina was — what she was ; that Susie is — what she has always remained. So Susie at last comes into her own. UNLESS motion pictures soon show a more decided trend towards truly reflecting life and unless there is a sweeping elimination of improbable stories and trashy plots, it seems inevitable that the stage of gradual deterioration will set in much sooner than any of the presentday enthusiasts will admit. Never did a novel endure that failed to show the people something they wanted to know about and were interested in, and never can the cinema art endure in its present zenith if it falls into the unfortunate habit of overlooking the essentials of actual life. As a rather amazing instance, let us cite that not a single photoplay showing the effect upon the life of America as a result of the great war has yet been offered to the public. No one has thought of that evidently, and yet those effects are everywhere around us, and every citizen is intensely interested in them. What kind of a nation may we expect this to be five years hence when the full effects of the world conflict are discernible? Is there not a story in that idea alone? What will be the possible, reasonable attitude of war babies of 1918 when they reach maturity on the subject of war? Are we any more civilized for having gone through this dreadful, harrowing experience? Two more big picture plays are surely suggested here. What about woman suffrage? Has the real effect of this popular agitation been reflected on the screen ? Not so you can notice it. And, we — or you — could mention dozens of subjects which would justify the most painstaking effort to transplant notably on the silversheet. _ Meanwhile there is a marked inclination to continue to project stories on all the hackneyed themes extant. We are still getting a surfeit of the sex question as the melodramatists of fifteen years ago treated it, and, yet it is obvious to every observer that even man's way of regarding love is in a state of complete metamorphosis. Men of this day do not "make love" like their antecedents. Women do not reciprocate in the same wholly dependent way. What is this difference? You are as yet unable to determine any difference by watching picture plays. Is this not ridiculous? In view of the fact that our very mode of living in most all walks is changing perceptibly, it is patent it should be reflected with fidelity by the motion picture camera. There is incontrovertible evidence that the most interesting phases of the mortal career as influenced by the new and extraordinary conditions are not more than lightly touched upon in the calculations of the majority of the authors and producers. The reason is a deep, unfathomable mystery. Perhaps there is too much commercialism and not enough devotion to art, but whatever is the cause, it can be overcome, and if there is an early awakening to a realization of the utter and indefensible futility of killing the goose that lays the golden egg, it will spare the cinema to a history which can be made only through the process of the survival of the fittest. And, the cinema is unquestionably the fittest form of entertainment ever devised. (Continued on page 53)