Picture Play Magazine (Jul - Dec 1929)

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92 Continued from page 69 way. who photographs handsomely and whose fine voice is used with utmost effectiveness, and without any affectation at all. Mark my words, it is Miss Colbert and others like her who one day will inevitably displace the baby-face ingenues of the screen, whose lack of vocal training causes them to pride themselves on speaking "naturally." There is no such thing as natural speech in acting, in the sense that the player can speak as he does in conversation. It is the illusion of naturalness that the skillful player creates. This comes from knowledge of values in speech, in timing, in enunciating, in "coloring" words, and in breathing. However, all this isn't telling you anything about the story of "The Hole in the Wall," is it? It's a crook melodrama, having to do with a child's kidnaping by a gang posing as spiritualists. The girl just out of prison, who joins them, inspires the kidnaping to avenge a false accusation by the child's grandmother. The climax comes when the girl, holding a seance, receives a message from a dead member of the gang by which the child is saved from drowning. This is extremely dramatic. All in all, though the picture is not the best dialogue film yet made, it is worth seeing if for no other reason than the acting of Miss Colbert, Edward G. Robinson, Alan Brooks, David Newell, Louise Closser Hale, and others — all from the stage. See it — and Miss Colbert. Three in One. Unusual, to say the least, is "Through Different Eyes." That is to say the narration of it is out of the ordinary, though the pleasure derived from it is not acute. Told entirely in dialogue, it gives speech again to those stars of "In Old Arizona," Warner Baxter and Edmund Lowe, and accomplishes the debut of Mary Duncan in this medium. At the outset it seems to be just another breaking out of the epidemic of courtroom drama, but in short order you find that it is something quite different. A man is on trial for the murder of his best friend. The prosecuting attorney sums up the case with a description of what he thinks transpired on the night of the crime. Whereupon you see the scene he would have the jury believe. Then the defense attorney offers his version of the fatal night and an entirely different theory is visualized, with the same characters that appeared in the first version. Then a girl spectator rushes to the judge and cries that the accused man is innocent, and her version of the shooting is then seen on the screen. It results The Screen in ReViextf in the acquittal of Harvey Manning and his happy reunion with his wife. All this has the effect of three oneact plays held together by brief courtroom episodes between. It is interesting, yes, but never quite convincing, probably because the episodes are florid in the extreme. In the first Harvey Manning and his wife are shown to be the victims of Jack Winfield, their friend, who is a madman. In the second the Mannings are revealed as profligate scoundrels, with IV infield their victim, and the third version shows circumstances as they really were. All this is out of the ordinary, but the characters suffer because you feel no sympathy for them in any version. Tulip Time. Saccharine, treacle, glucose — that's "Christina," the latest version of Janet Gaynor, in "Seventh Heaven." Sirupy though it is, so far as the story goes, it is one of the prettiest, quaintest pictures ever made. Perhaps Miss Janet in the costumes of a little Dutch girl, against backgrounds of canals, windmills and tulips, may compensate for the frail romance that engages her. Certainly she acts it with beautiful tenderness and all the charm that is uniquely her own. Furthermore, Charles Morton, as her circus sweetheart, is at his best and paves the way for a real triumph when it falls to his lot to play a more vital role. As it is, his Jan has the aspects of a fairy-tale prince, but it is no fault of his own. His role is that of a young fellow who dons a white uniform and rides ahead of the circus procession on a white horse. Christina, who lives with her aged father, a toymaker, has always longed for the coming of the knight on a white horse about whom she dreams. Hence she will have none of her boisterous suitor, Dirk Torpe. When all is going well with Christina and Jan and their tulipscented courtship, comes the menace of the picture to spoil it. She is Madame Bosnian, owner of the circus, who is as mean as the ogre in a fairy story and who, in the name of love, causes Jan's arrest for embezzlement so that he cannot leave the circus and remain with Christina. But the little girl follows him to Amsterdam and there comes upon evidence of his interest in Madame Bosnian. Resignedly she is about to marry Dirk, when Jan returns in the nick of time and all is hopjes forever after. The trouble is that no one with half an eye could ever doubt that Jan would come back, consequently there is no suspense. But "Christina" is delicately charming and is beautifully acted by the sweethearts and Rudolph Schildkraut, as Christina's father. As for the German actress, Lucy Dorraine, as Madame Bosnian, she follows the technique of vamping revived by Mary Duncan in "Four Devils" and "The River," so the influence of Theda Bara will not be downed. The film is unreeled without dialogue. Congratulations, James Murray! James Murray is a fine actor ! Perhaps you have known it all along, but I was not so fortunate until I saw him in "The Shakedown." Then he moved me greatly with his sincerity, naturalness and the wealth of feeling in his voice. His performance is one of the best of the month, and so far as my emotional response is concerned, it is the best individual performance of them all. Part of my satisfaction comes from the fact that "The Shakedown" is only a program picture, therefore its exceptional merits surprised me. It is a prize-fight film, but it is different, not only the story itself, but the many unexpected touches which keep one in a state of surprise. Mr. Murray's role is that of Dave Roberts, a purposeless young man who falls in with a group of crooks and lends himself to their "racket." They send a man out to make friends and win the confidence of a community, and then advertise the coming of a well-known fighter who will give a thousand dollars to any man staying in the ring with him. Of course the advance man is then urged by the townspeople to accept the challenge, with their backing. In carrying out this plan in a new town Dave saves the Hfe of a child as a means of working up human interest in himself, and is disgusted when no one sees him do it. The boy, a juvenile hobo, worms himself into Dave's affections and, with the waitress Dave loves, is the cause of his reformation. The scenes between man and boy are touchingly human and show both Mr. Murray and Jack Hanlon, the child, at their best. I defy any one to listen to them unmoved. Barbara Kent, as the heroine, is refreshing, and Wheeler Oakman and Harry Gribbon are also in evidence. Have I made clear that this picture is worth seeing? It is, very. Tut, Tut, Mr. DeMille. Cecil DeMille has given us a strange picture in "The Godless Girl." And when I say "strange" I don't mean good. Rather is it an example of judgment gone awry and values askew. Purporting to be starkly realistic, it is as unreal as life Continued on page 94