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SCREENPLAYS
screen month with genuine surprises ! Distressing as it is to relate, it found Mary Pickford floundering under the expert direction of Ernst Lubitsch.
And it revealed Gloria Swanson, who hasn't been doing so much lately, as hitting an amazing Polaesque abandon in Zaza.
First, however, let us consider Miss Pickford's Rosita.
This comes mighty near being a perfect photoplay. You will go many, many months before you will see a screen drama told so dexterously.
And yet . . . Such is the pain of being a critic. No one has ever endeared themselves to me as Miss Pickford and yet I must honestly admit her performance to be inadequate.
T
Rosita: An Almost Perfect Film he story itself doesn't stand real analysis. Said to be
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based upon Don Caesar de Bazan, it was adapted to Miss Pickford's uses by Edward Knoblock. At basis it is the romance of the king of Spain and a little street singer of
Seville. The monarch is a charming rogue — a happygo-lucky player with life. In other words, a Castillian Louis XIV. The street idol of the streets is never anything but Pollyanna with all the old Pickford tricks, although the curls have been put aside. The role of Rosita shrieks for the Pola Negri of old. So the story of the royal, amorous adventurer and little Pollyanna never quite rings true.
Lubitsch handles this with all his old skill, plus a new finesse coming only of a close study of our methods. I have never seen such workmanlike placing of the camera with such superb screen angles, such adroit cutting, such lighting or such a finely maintained atmosphere.
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Holbrook Blinn's Hit
n brief, Rosita comes, as I have said, very close to being a perfect picture. It falls down in its acting. Yet there is one sweeping performance to redeem things. Holbrook Blinn runs away with the picture as the naughty king — a roystering monarch fit to go in.Emil Tannings' supurb gallery of roguish royalty. Here is a corking performance. Excellent, too, is Irene Rich's playing of the queen. The scenes between Mr. Blinn and Miss Rich are admirable, rife with subtlety and understanding. You will love them.
George Walsh is Rosita's lover but I view his performance as pretty poor. However, Lubitsch comes nearer to making him act than any one has ever done before. Which proves .his directorial greatness. Rosita has many admirable mob moments. You will remember those splendid surging throngs of Lubitsch's German films. We have often heard since of the excellence of the Germanic mob. Lubitsch seems to have found one of them right in Hollywood — which would lead me to think that it is all a matter of the director after all.
Possibly your love for Miss Pickford will color your viewpoint and make you think that Rosita really presents her as a grown up and developing star. Most of the New York critics thought so, anyway. Maybe I'm wrong — but I see Mary here as giving a very immature performance. We shall watch Pola's next picture, The Spanish Dancer, also adapted from Don Caesar de
Bazan, with interest. A
— r r>i 7 *„„>„ year or so ago Pola would
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holiday as Quasimodo in The have burned up the screen Hunchback of Notre Dame, in this part but now. ...
We shall see.
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