Picture Play Magazine (Mar-Aug 1920)

68 Some Pre-Release Impressions tography. They are optic luxuries. Betty Blythe is one of the women scorned by "The Mischief Man." She need not be perturbed ; no other male with his right eyesight will scorn her. After seeing her in this picture I'm not so sure Katherine MacDonald is Lillian Russell's successor. Miss Blythe is a vibrant, magnificent creature, a superb emotional actress. Eleanor Fair supplies a dainty lump of saccharin. She is pretty and natural. Picture fans will be interested, no doubt, in seeing Cleo Ridgley, who has been away for months. Lillian Rambeau, mother of Marjorie, adds interest to the cast. Lloyd Hamilton does a droll character that causes one to search the program to identify him. J. Barney Sherry, boutonniere elder of the screen, is as suave and histrionically polished as ever. But pulchritudinous Betty and precocious Bobbie are the real wonders of "The Mischief Man." Bessie Love enlivens "The Midlanders" with the sparkle of her youth. Having overheard the whispers, I wonder how feelings and words can so alter by audible repetition. The preview of "The Mischief Man," starring Lew Cody, was a midnight affair in the fiery-purple suffusion of Grauman's Rialto theater. Among the celebrities present, ye society editor observed Pauline Frederick and Antonio Moreno, besides the stellar employees. Tony Moreno came to applaud his dog, Bobbie, whose emotional work will receive more comment than that of the less versatile players. I promised Mr. Moreno I would say this. ^ "The Mischief Man" imitates the theme of "The Great Lover" played on the stage by Leo Ditrichstein. It has forgotten to imitate the purpose and the technique. The lady who sits next to me remarked : "How does Cody get that way, thinking he can throw down all the women in the world without getting bumped?" Ladies are venomous when some one steps on their pride. They may let a Lothario get away with bluebearding in real life, but they will never stand for him on the screen. We will admit an Anatol in the person of John Barrymore, who has the personality, features, and amorous magnetism of Adonis, but there is only one Adonis and only one John. Mr. Cody has none of the godly attributes, nor does he manifest ardor or any other emotion. The only conclusion, then, is that women are fools. If such be true, Heaven help the movie star who tries to prove it. Certainlv the ladies are not going to pay twenty-seven cents of good butter-and-egg money to be so informed. Whatever Mr. Cody's failing as a he-vamp, his generosity to the members of his cast is admirable. He deserves more generous treatment from scenario writers. He is prodigal, too, with settings and pho Had "The Midlanders" been presented to the public as I saw it at a preview, "If" and Bessie Love would once more have shown an affinity for each other. I left the projection room vowing once again that if Miss Love were given good stories and directing she would shine forth in the first rank of the screen's portrayers of girl characters. Not that I want to claim that she would take Mary Pickford's place; that would be ridiculous. But she needs only the right sort of vehicle to establish a place for herself close to the Pickford level. Yet even so badly assembled a picture as was "The Midlanders" at the time I saw it was so enlivened with Miss Love's sparkle of youth and sensitive, vibrating personality that the picture was salvaged. She never has played with such buoyancy and delightful coloring, and I felt aggrieved that she had been given a story which, it seemed to me, could not have been more tangled if the author had rolled in the continuity. But it is not always safe to judge by a first showing; for the picture has been reassembled, and I understand that my first criticism no longer holds good. So I shall be interested in seeing "The Midlanders" again. King Vidor is the great humanist of the photo play. His forte, like that of Millet, Daudet, and Dickens, is the illumining of homely life. "The Jack-Knife Man," created from the novel by Ellis Parker Butler, is his new celluloid. It will be one of the distinct novelties of the year. All box-office formulas as to what "gets over" are ignored. There is not a volt of sex motive, no lovely heroine, no brave hero, and no deep-laid plot. When I saw it in a small projection room it had but few titles. For all this, "The Jack-Knife Man" is entrancing. The first requisite of dramaturgy is this power to take the spectator out of himself and place him in the world conceived by the artist.