Picture Play Magazine (Jul - Dec 1929)

67 It is with conflicting emotions that the critic strives to do justice to a bumper crop of exceptional pictures, some surprisingly fine voices where least expected, and casts the mantle of charity over a few meager ones. ford's failure to come up to critical requirements is a challenge to the critic to set forth his reasons why she does not. In the first place her performance does not stir the imagination and grip the emotions as Helen Hayes' did on the stage. It has the quality of pathos it is true, but you feel that the characterization is a stunt, a tour de force, rather than the exposure of Norma Besanfs soul in a crisis such as could only happen to a gently reared girl. Her Southern accent is exaggerated to the point of caricature at times, and she is photographed in a way that does not make for illusion. Considering that flawless camera work has always been a virtue of Miss Pickford's films, the lack of it here is a defect that cannot he overlooked. It is a reflection on her acting, because it entails a sacrifice of conviction, of illusion. Yet, for all this, I grant that Miss Pickford leaves no doubt of her great skill and her tremendous capabilities; it is just that her Norma isn't as marvelous as the character was when played on the stage with the same lines and, indeed, with limitations which the screen naturally surmounts. Nowadays when a star essays a stage play on the screen she cannot escape comparison through the excuse of a different medium. Voice is the determining factor in both cases. Miss Pickford's is pleasing and expressive, hut it is by no means the most eloquent I have heard. You will realize what great eloquence is required of Norma when you know the tragedy that comes into her life. She is the flirt of a small town, the daughter of a doctor who idolizes her, and the favorite of all the young gallants. Almost without knowing it she falls in love with Michael Jeffcry, a low-horn ne'er-do-well as far removed from her social sphere as if he were a criminal. Her father forhids him the house, and when Norma spends the night with Michael, Doctor Bcsant kills him as the seducer of his daughter. Norma, kept a prisoner in her room, cannot tell her father that his suspicions are groundless — that she spent the night on her lover's lap planning the future. Cross-examined at the trial, she tries to give evidence that will justify her father's murder of the man she loves, but when her testimony is broken down and he discovers that she lied to save him, Doctor Bcsant shoots himself. This leaves Norma to make her way out of the courtroom into the dusk, to help her hrother with his algebra. If you saw the play you will recognize certain differences in the picture which roh it of its poignance, hut if you did not it'will prohahly not occur to you to regret that the heroine had to stay pure for the sake of the censors. Of the supporting cast I liked best John St. Polis, as the father, and Matt Moore, as the faithful, rejected, suitor. No, I'm not going to shower John Mack Brown with hrimstone this time. He does very well as Michael and his acting is given conviction by his voice, heard for the first time. It is an agreeable voice and his Southern accent is bona fide. However, the role is greatly softened and conventionalized in the screen version. John St. Polis, as Doctor Besant, is a willing victim to the charm of Mary Pickford, as his daughter, in "Coquette." Just a Wow — That's All. What a picture this "Rainbow Man" is! The reasons why you should see it are too numerous to mention. One of them is that it is irresistible. I can't imagine any one staying away once the uproar of its success begins to be heard. Believe me, the happy stir created by a picture such as this is immediate and far-reaching. I can hear it already! And I can still hear Eddie Howling, the star, singing and speaking as distinctly as if I were seeing the picture over again. He is a stage star. who makes his first appearance on the screen as "Rainbow" Ryan, the minstrel man, whose dying pal leaves his son. Billy, in Rain how's care. Mr. Dowling isn't like any one else you have seen or heard. To me he is far more sympathetic and appealing than the several singing actors who have preceded him. One never feels that he is trying to be the whole show, nor does he apparently strain to sing louder or be more pathetic than any one else. His acting is natural, his singing is "sweet and low" and. oh ! what tears there are in his voice! Instead of "Standing Room Only" outside the theater, the sign ought to be "Not a Dry Eye in the House." You will know why when you see the picture. Rainbow and Billy visit the town of Arcadia with Hardy's Minstrels, and there Rainbow falls in love with