Picture Play Magazine (Sep 1925 - Feb 1926)

20 The Greater Movie Season of Clay," "Phantom of the Opera," "Barbara Frietchie," "In Hollywood with Potash and Perlmutter," "Introduce Me," as well as the aggregate, needless to say, of that fifteen-thousand-dollar-a-week star, Tom Mix's pictures. Westerns and features, with a strong comedy element have perhaps, all in all, been the most universally favored. My own p.^erence in pictures released during the past twelve months, based on the more artistic qualities, runs as follows : "He Who Gets Slapped." . "Beggar On Horseback." Released rather late generally to be included, possiblv. "Peter Pan." "The Thief of Bagdad." "Isn't Life Wonderful." "The Last Laugh." "The Iron Horse." "The Sea Hawk." "The Lost World." "Monsieur Beaucaire." Three of these, "The Hawk," "The Thief of dad," and "Monsieur Beaucaire," I have mentioned be fore in a Forecast article, which I wrote for the February number of Picture-Play, but they were shown generally late enough in the year to be included again. In the pictures that I have selected I have picked those that genuinely impressed me as productions rather than because they depended on the appeal of some particular personality. The attractions of a star naturally are in the foreground in "The Thief of Bagdad," "He Who Gets Slapped," with Lon Chanev, "The Sea Hawk," Milton Sills ; "The Iron Horse," George O'Brien; and "The Last Laugh," Emil Jannings, but never to such an extent as to supersede the effectiveness of the picture itself, and this fact I find nowadays significant. Too, all of these pictures avoid the conventional, with the possible exception of "The Iron Horse" and "The Sea Hawk." "Beggar on Horseback," "Peter Pan," and "The Thief of Bagdad" were notable for their imagination and fantasy. So, too, was the "The Lost World," the most freakish perhaps of our current entertainments, but a revelation of the power of the camera to do extraordinary and unbelievable things. "Monsieur Beaucaire" and "The Sea Hawk" deserve high praise for their lavishness. The photographic beauty of "Beaucaire" was something to conjure with. "He Who Gets Slapped" and "Isn't Life Wonderful" were alluring in their dramatic effect, and "The Last Laugh" is by far the biggest satire that the screen has ever had. I cannot show any high degree of enthusiasm over certain of the best moneymakers I have listed. "Hot Water" certainly was not of Harold Lloyd's best. It happened, however, to be a good picture for the theater. It was short and enabled exhibitors to run it more times during a day than most of the recent Lloyd pictures. It really won by a fluke. The surpassing vogue of "Chai'ley's Aunt" is perhaps not difficult to explain. It took like the wildest sort of wildfire. It is, to be sure, a very ebullient comedy, even though in some respects antiquated. Syd Chaplin's performance is what really won the audience — that and the fact that few if any laugh films have disclosed a successful female impersonation. I cannot feel, though, that it was truly a remarkable film. "Sally," I thought very splendid as a comedy — one of Colleen Moore's most Sea Bag The strongest interest of the new season will be the renewed activity of the established directors and stars who have been responsible for the more real and lasting achievements of the past, namely: Norma Talmadge, Douglas Fairbanks, Charles Chaplin, D. W. Griffith, Rex Ingram and Lillian Gish.