Screenland (Oct 1923-Mar 1924)

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with something of the epic quality of a Covered Wagon trip. Arriving in Kentucky, Keaton finds himself constituting one-half of an old feud. He discovers that while he is the guest of his enemies he is safe, owing to the good old rules of Southern hospitality, and he declines to move. Our Hospitality has a vast amount of comic ingenuity but it is some two reels too long. Comedians will insist upon making feature pictures! Yet our comedies are far in advance of our dramas in points of freshness and cleverness. This Our Hospitality has more originality than all the other pictures of the month, The Ten Commandments included. Lucretia Lombard Jumbled Stuff ' ucretia Lombard is another so-called screen classic produced by the Warner Brothers. It is adapted from a Kathleen Norris novel and very likely will carry its studio title, Flaming Passion, when you see it outside of New York. For Manhattan the producers utilized the original title for some reason or other.. Maybe they thought the published title had some value! You never can tell. I am not familiar with Miss Norris' original novel but the screen version is certainly movie stuff with a vengeance. It is a badly jumbled story of a young woman who has been true to her sick but unfaithful husband through the years despite her knowledge of his weakness. Finally he dies through a mixup in medicines and, in the subsequent investigation, the widow meets the young district attorney. They love each other at first sight but the attorney is forced by circumstances into a marriage with a girl he does not really love. The director, Jack Conway, solves the problem finally by having a forest fire eliminate the wife, clearing the way for the district attorney and the widow to do the fade-out stuff. I can not hand this Lucretia Lombard anything, even in acting. Irene Rich comes closest to humanness but Monte Blue is weak as the attorney, Marc McDermott overacts as the naughty husband, and Norma Shearer is dreadful as the woman who traps the attorney into marriage until the forest fire gets her. Miss Shearer seems to have every annoying ingenue quality. Name the Man Varies N, ME the Man, adapted from Sir Hall Caine's The Master of Man, has unusual interest, being Victor Seastrom's first American-made screenplay. This Seastrom has an interesting record behind him in the Swedish studios. Name the Man proved to be both good and bad. Seastrom was plainly handicapped by a fundamentally weak story and an inferior cast, save in a single instance. At basis it is the old story of the wronged girl who is brought before the guilty man for trial. This is typically Caine stuff with all its emotional turgidness. And the favorite Caine background, the Isle of Man, is here. On the whole, Seastrom handles his material expertly, particularly in the courtroom scene, which is very well done indeed. The one histrionic exception I have referred to is Mae Busch, who plays the girl with a great deal of variety and effectiveness. It is a better performance than her highly commendable Gloria in The Christian. The rest of the acting is very flat. The snoring of fellow film fans in th theatre on the night I viewed Emmett J. Flynn's production of the late F. Marion Crawford's In the Palace of the King, was appalling.' Actually, this screenplay is a dreadful costume dud. In the Palace of the King Dull .HE Cra'wford romance is not inspiring, simply the old hokus of the handsome young nobleman who loves a lovely gal below his rank in life. This time the gent is Don John, brother of the wicked King Philip II of Spain and a war hero and public idol on his own account. Aside from the kindergarden romance, there is the intrigue of Philip, who resents his brother's popularity. This culminates when the naughty monarch runs John through with his sword. But his trusty general, Mendoza, father of the gal, shoulders the blame to protect his king, runs his own sword through the body of John, in order to get blood upon the weapon, and gives himself up. Then of course, the distraught gal, believing her father guilty, confesses her love for the late lamented John in open court. Thus she hopes to save her father, but in vain. The Original Rubber Hero Buster Keaton gives a highly amusing performance in Our Hospitality. JL hey are just threshing out the details of papa's execution when, lo and behold, John reappears — ALIVE! The lad puts all other wounded heroes in the shade, for the camera has plainly shown him to have been perforated with a sword not once but twice. Still, he is wearing a suit of snow-white satin and lace and there isn't a speck of gore on it. The subtitles do not attempt to explain all this. Nor do I. I simply present it as an interesting addition to your gallery of directorial bones. I have often commented upon the bloodless characters of our American-made romantic films, but this Don John is plainly of India rubber. Mr. Flynn is guilty of other things, too. He allows his army to march away to fight the Moors and then march back again in just as spick and span a glitter. He gets nothing out of his cast. Even Blanche Sweet, the unforgettable Anna Christie, seems highly puzzled with the proceedings. And the much touted Aileen Pringle, soon to be seen as the tigerskin lady of Three Weeks, is pretty inadequate as a plotting princess of Phillip's court. She doesn't seem to be able to express anything at all in the way of drama. Tiger Rose Lacks Tang TTicer Rose, another Warner Brothers' classic, is a screen version of the Northwest melodrama of Willard Mack, which was so highly effective behind David Belasco's footlights. Out in the real out doors, the excitement seems to lose its tang. Doubtless you have read announcements of Lenore Ulric's screen debut in Tiger Rose but, being a good fan, you remember all her celluloid characterizations of the past, before Mr. Belasco discovered her and made her a star in a series of roles culminating in the piquant Kiki. I recall Miss l/lric as having a good measure of charm and appeal. Something of these two qualities has disappeared and Tiger Rose isn't quite the screenplay you had been anticipating. Or is it because we are tired unto death of these endless tales of the Northwestern mounted police? Or, more likely, Miss Ulric was too tired from playing Kiki for two straight years to approach the films with any real zest. That's probably [Continued on page 98] 52