Reel Life (1916-1917)

PERILS OF OUR GIRL REPORTERS ^HE BLACI V ■ V ling series dramas wi I per, produc I and release ration, is < at the same ing motion picture plays ei Helen Greene, who pla Isabel Ralston, a young ne of a great metropolitan dail her managing editor into recalls Poe’s “Murders of tl out the story there is that e which defies analysis but through the human system Constructively and picto remarkable drama. Based tion, to-wit, that the front one family for more than a any occupant died, it has be a play so thrilling that it 1 moment to the last. To begin with there i niece of an old old lady, H; and the imminence of her sphere, have inspired her re them to conspire that her c But Cynthia is more th type” if you know what protruding teeth, bulbous eVv_o, complexion, ua.w like hands and neurotic gestures are a combination that would at once attract the attention of the receiving in¬ terne in a psychopathic ward. Cynthia’s smile is as ghastly as the laugh of a hyena at midnight. Miss Ralston falls under the evil sway of Cynthia and her band of harpies who have installed themselves in old Miss Kennedy’s home, because, having befriended the old woman once, she has been sent for by the latter in her extremity. Then there is Jonas Slaughter, the lawyer, a sort of relative of old Miss Kennedy, also an occupant of the house and Fidus Achates of Cynthia, who moves like a man walking in his sleep, but whose little sharp eyes are all over the place at once and whose atmosphere is that of an undertaker’s back room. Slaughter and Cynthia, together with the dissolute nephew of Miss Kennedy, plot to kill the old lady and to throw the blame on Miss Ralston and John Farrar, Isabel’s law office fiance, who has accompanied her at her request and who is stormbound as she is in the house of “The Black Door.” Thej night scene in the rambling old halls and rooms of Miss Kennedy’s ancient mansion is one that lives in the memory, because of the mysterious comings and goings of the murderous gang that watches every move of the visitors. One can almost hear the windows rattle in the fierce gusts that drive torrents of rain against them. James Kennedy, the nephew, who is egged on by Cynthia to garrote his aunt in her bed, and who is nerved to the deed by the administration of cocaine, is recognized by Miss Ralston, who has been kept awake by the storm, and brought to book by her for the crime, after she her¬ self has been accused. The attraction of the piece, aside from its engrossing mystery, consists largely in the faithfulness with which the part of the newspaper reporter is played by Miss Greene, who adopts none of the old time stage devices to signify that she is a newspaper woman. The death scene, in which old Miss Kennedy is shown to have died by violence, and the unmasking of the mur¬ derer, her nephew, are skilfully staged and wonderfully effective. Mr. Metcalfe’s acting of the part of Farrar in this episode is worthy of all praise. The mystery of the “Black Door,” is solved as such mysteries usually are in the long run, when it is dis¬ covered that Cynthia has been in the habit of telling the story most industriously, and that it was she who black¬ ened the door with a big brush in order to impress on the minds of simple folk that the death of Miss Kennedy had been wrought by some mysterious agency. “The Black Door” is a thrilling drama, the compelling appeal of which cannot be comprehended until it has been seen. REEL LIFE — Page Eight