The Billboard 1917-10-13: Vol 29 Iss 41 (1917-10-13)

— : The Billboard : OCTOBER 13, 1917 FILMS REVIEWED SHALL WE FORGIVE HER Five-reel Peerless-World feature. For release October 15. THE CAST: Grace ere Fividge Neil Garth. .cccccccsccceceeess-Arthur Ashley Oliver West..ccccccccsesseceess--J0bn Bowers Uncle JOh...ccccccccccccecc...-Capt. Charles WE ccccccccccccccrccoscecee. machard Collins Dick cccccccccccccccccces...-Arthur Matthews Paul Elisworth.............Herbert Barrington James Stapleton............George MacQuarrie Nellie West..........-.--+..-Katberine Johnson DE Ssh vows bbeb + ie on ake canes Carewe BUtHOF .nccccccccccccsccccccse -Cnaries Larver Director ...... -Arthur Asbley Photographer nevtkbaeentc oa Monteran Shall We Forgive Her? Perhaps—but not it. If we forgive Shall We Forgive Her we'll be stretching our powers too far. Elastic tho they be, they fail to cover the exigencies of a picture as disintegrated in its interest as this one, that sounds so questionable and isn’t, but is wofse. Maybe we can drive ourselves to forgiveness for a poor idiot girl who goes into the fastnesses of the frozen North to meet a sweetheart who forces his attentions without the forethought of matrimony, but we can’t be so lenient with a film that wanders around hither and thither and is as hopelessly mediocre as this, They say Lincoln said something about God loving the common folks because he made so many of them. Certainly the producers must love common “film—they make so very, very many of them! And this is a fine example. In justification: It will ride thru a program all right. It never rises nor sinks much. It merely rambles along and gets where everybody knows it will, and isn’t worth much money to see. But it has June Elvidge and Arthur Ashley and John Bowers and George MacQuarrie— all good old World standbys who have created their little public of a certain sort, who will welcome them whenever and however they appear.—L, H. THE GIRL WHO WON OUT Universal-Butterfly feature. For release Oct. 8. ~ ‘THE CAST: Nancy Grimm.......+-.++---.Violet MacMillan --Barbara Conley ° -.--P, L, Pembrokt Mrs, SEAS. on; oodedicacsael .A. EB. Witting Mr. Wicks. iegine esac ogee Hill Maites Mrs. Walsh ...............--..--Gertrude Aster i MeEEER. oss cnccese pébinSebes ieee L. M. Wells CEs s6ecteceses «+.--Sherman Rainbridge PT Nils ine aee.s dee -....Judge Willis Brown Scenario ......... pissevccvensee DB eee ee. NGO, cavecnecens Saterenes .-.Eugene Moore Violet MacMillan had to go thru a good deal of strenvosity in boy's elothes, a good deal of running in and ont of the scenes, which never seemed to land anywhere, and was saddled with a lot of absurdity in order to win out, as the title suggests that she did. However, the final scene of bliss seems to be an assurance that she did, and was satisfied with her efforts, The Girl Who Won Out is another of the ones that rack the brain of a poor reviewer. Obviously it was made to fill a program. It is not bad enough to arouse any enthusiasm of DAVID POWELL Leading man with the Empire All-Star CorpoTation. remonstrance, and it is so’ordinary that to mention it at all is flattery. Violet MacMillan puts on boy’s clothes and pretends to be both a boy and a girl, and fights for the possession of a little sister who has been taken away from an orphans’ Some and separated in a way that fails to meet the approval of the older girl, tho the audience's impression of the wealthy home is not distaste. ful enough to warrant a poor vagabond sister‘s kidnaping and ruining the baby’s future. There are several bits of action, which nothing but the mind of a scintillating gentus would ever be able to interpret. But the public—bless the public!—is willing to submit. If it sits thru The Girl Who Won Out -vitheut a protest anent picture plot and construction it will suffer anything. It will have proved itself completely hardened.—L. H. THE GHOST HOUSE Five-reel Paramount-Lasky feature, lease October 1. For re THE CAST: Ted Rawson.......secccccseceee.dack Pickford Lois Atwell..... eentecdecenecapanetee aa Alice Atwell-King........ eeccecocse sn Gna Jeremy Foster, the gardener......James Neill eS Se eee ocanckebaee Eugene Pallette Dido vevecoevccccccoveccocstt, tmis. Mates James Clancy............-Horace B. Carpenter Mrs. Rawson...........+---..-Edythe Chapman Mary Ellen Clancy.......---.--Lillian Leighton Author .....sc.csceese+eeees-bewlah Marie Dix DISSENT 2.0 ccveveccseccocso, as me aes Nearly a House of a Thousand Candles, but even with more of a plot than the novel which new to films. As a film it rises to no heights, as an idea for a film the kernel juts out prominentiy. Earle Williams is a surgeon, white gowned, and a brain specialist. The girl he loves is unresponsive to his advances and the girl he dislikes is going to the limit to attract him. An opportunity to show his skill comes and he changes the cells of one girl to the brain of the other in an attempt to remake their character. Failure is his natural reward, for he has gone too far and overstepped the end he attempted to accomplish. But it isn’t the romance that is exceptional. Of course, he marries the girl he has given the impelling desire to in the surgical interchange and gives her of his own brain in another operatien in restoring her normality. It is the idea that picture audiences will go home talking of. It’s valuable.—L. H. ~ CAMILLE Five-reel Fox film released at Academy of Musie, New York, October 1. THE CAST: Camille ......... Armand Duval .. Madame Prudence .. eccccbectcose Alice Gale Celeste Duval J oe masidhdiesacn Cn Whitney Gaston Rieux .......cecseseeeeee---Glen White How long, oh, Lord, how long? How long will the ridiculous continue to rise paramount in the doings of our film companies? Is there no sincerity? Are fortunes in money and time being prostituted for nothing but the star of excruciating monstrosity? Ye gods, ye gods! They have jut Theda Bara in Camille. They will sell it over the country and advertise it as art. Theda, who can only wear clothes and look vampish is allowed to desecrate the lines of the divine Sarah; is allowed to conceive the situations which only an AMERICAN EXHIBITORS’ ASSOCIATION 2602 Times Bldg., New York City Gentlemen— I (,.*%.:) interested in the new business organization composed of exhibitors only. I Seger “oe “iy Se name be placed on your an t permanent mailing list activities. I will on my part (ccusdeJoining) the American Exhibitors’ Asso ciation. Name be kept informed of your + 44 44 6 4 4 ttt +++? se A i i i i i i i Theater City State Please mail this immediately. POOF OFFS HSSSOSSSSSSOSSSOOSSOSOOSOSOS SOS SOSOSSCO OOH? + 4 4 4 4 ts >t» '?@@@ 2 @ 0 eo eo oo FT 9 has sent thrills down the spines of so many thousand readers, The Ghost House has made its appearance on the Paramount program—a guarantee that a bunch of laughs will be fortbcoming. It’s a well blocked out story, with Jack Pickford and Louise Huff and Olga Grey doing their triple best with it. Three sets of people invade the haunted house on the same night, all half fearing the tradition and none knowing of the other’s presence. A very human romance, snatched from the occult, unwinds itself from the mixture of farce with a most acceptable charm. Miss Huff is given a better chance than she usually is allowed to show her blond and gracious sweetness, and Olga Grey—while her part never fits her very well, does what she can toward coaxing herself into being a frightened sister, and does it, as she is always capable of doing, €xceedingly well. How nice it would be if we could have more of Olga Grey’s fresh personality! Jack Pickford is proving himself more and more Jack Pickford and less and tess Mary’s brother. So The Ghost House is worth the hour and a quarter and the admission price.—L, H. THE LOVE DOCTOR \ Five-reel Vitagraph-Blue Ribbon feature for release October 8. THE CAST: Dr. Ordway Brandt .............Earle Williams Blanche Hildreth ...............-Corinne Griffith Stephen Elliot .............+.Webster Campbell Dr. John Cutler ....6..+.++ee-..-Evart Overton Rose Deming ..........+0+----ratsy De Forest Claire Deming sssconscesssoo@h@iuam De Garde PEON ab tea cadcnnenskaeanet Frank McDonald RORROE o icccndamiin +eesee+eGeorge P, Dillenback PRUNE 5050centiewdice Adeebaen --Paul Scardon A new idea—that invaluable and indefinite something that is long sought for and infrequently found—has been caught and limelighted by Vitagraph’s The Love Doctor. At least it is artist could do effectively; is forced to make farce out of that which has been at least created beautifully in the past. But she knows not that it is farce. The dear public which will look at it will submit silently —they’ve paid their door fee and take what they get, and the hope for better and greater films will slide down another notch. Theda Bara in Camille! What shall we say? Perhaps the most descriptive thing would be that it is—well, just Theda Bara in Camille. Those who know Camille and Theda Bara will understand. It is not smutty in situation; it is beautiful in costume and setting, bare of action, and hopeless if you take it seriously.—L. H. FIGHTING ODDS Five-ree] Goldwyn feature released at the Strand Theater, N. Y., week of September 30, THE CAST: Mrs. Copley ...cececeseseeceseeoss Maxine Elliott BE. COMIEY . .ccccccsccvccccccscesccMOMny Clive John W. Blake ............+«...Charles Dalton BEAD ceccccddacccssesedcticcecsc dOeRg® Odell oe , Be coosesecensg sana Hughston District Attorney cane .William T. Carleton rey A. ST eee Eric Hudson Authors ..Roi Cooper Megrue “and Irvin 8. Cobb Maxine Elliott, Roi Cooper Megrue, Irvin 8. Cobb. Pat pins marks between the names like we used to do in the addition class at school, and the result ought to equal: Brilliance, Dissipate your anticipations. Fighting Odds is not brilliant. It is a very common story, ordinarily told, about a man whose prototype is evideatly Henry Ford, and about his wife, who saves him from the trap of the bad New York trust. To begin with, the story is limper than a wet rag; in the second place Maxine Elliott does nothing but walk around in very goodlooking clothes at a considerable distance from the camera most of ‘the time, and, lastly, the pro credited with being novel—a large number of them being completely black. The very apex of disappointment is this third Goldwyn release which introduces Miss Elliott to the screen and boasts the corapetent names of Messrs. Cobb and Megrue as its scenarioists, —L. HK. aes “aeons ONCE Five-reel Bluebird feature for release October &. THE CAST: Theodore Crosby .....-..+-..Franklyn Farnum Senorita Dolores .....+..++++-++-Claire Du Brey Dorothy Stuart ..............Marjory Lawrence Mrs. Stuart ...... coccccccccccces mary St. John Sir Mortimer Beggs ............-Sam De Grasse Waughnt Moore ...cceccceseessucee Lon Chaney Getting Mane .cccccccces *“‘Horned Toad’’ Smith Jethro Quail ........ Algernon .....6..e00% esses Krank Tokunaga Authors .......Isola Forrester and Mann Page DOGRATIO . ccccccccecceccese William Parker DirectOr ....ceseceeeeeeeeees-J0seph De Grasse They've captioned Anything Once ‘‘comedy drama.”’ As a matter of fact it is pure farce, with Franklyn Farnum in the smiley role of a young gentleman who has inherited a ranch and who is chased by a Spanish senorita in costume and has a whale of a lot of trouble. As to action it is principally horsemanship. A medal to a director who can cram more dashing steeds into five reels. There is posse riding and bucking exhibitions for no particular reason, apparently; there are dust and dashes here and there and a lot of Wild West atmosphere, meaning broad felt hats and a band of bandits. They've put some fun into it, however. And the bunch of goodlooking girls who satellite the heroine—! Mon dieu! They are peaches.—L. H. illiam — WILD SUMAC ee Five-reel Triangle feature. Released October 7. THE CAST: OE ere -Margery Wilson Jobn Lewis, Sergt. . W. M. P.. Edwin J. Brady SGN adesnundsaukek +++e-e++Frank Brownley PO Gee ica tes dsksstase Wilbur Higby Pierre duFere ....... eeccccccecesecs Ray Jackson Deacon Bricketts............. Percy Challenger Jacques Fontaine............... George Chesbro BEEP cedccccsesse oeceeeses..--Elaine Sterne Nas e+eeesWilllam V. Mong Photographer ...... seecececesse+-bdle Gailer The old Salem witchcraft days seemed to bave eluded the call of the movies somehow. But no longer will they have that distinction. Elaine Sterne has clipped them from the pages of history and dressed them to sult herself, trimmed them with the atmosphere of the North woods and made a scenario around a girl who was scorned and feared because of a childish declaration that she was a witch. The subtitles are in the dialect of the North woods Frenchman. The whole thing has the charm of the woods and the half-breed, intensified by the simple superstition of the people who would sacrifice the tnnocent life of a young girl to their wild fancies. Margery Wilson is the girl, and fits into her wild forest girl role charmingly, George Chesbro is Jacques Fontaine, the Frenchman, a good-bad man with the happy ability to appear at the right minute and save the lovely little Wild Sumac from all her troubles and woes. The pine woods contribute thelr part in making the settings suggestive. The suspense is never great at any time, but Wild Sumac is a very creditable bit of romance for the Triangle program.—L. H. POWER’S CAMERAGRAPH No. 6B THE PREMIER MOTION duction is sodden. The backgrounds may be PICTURE PROJECTOR 90 Gold St. NEW YORK, WN. Y. TO GET ALL THE LIGHT FROM CALCIUM GAS— USE PASTILS Whether you use tanks of portable outfit, this Specfal Burner will work De signed for Pastils only Will not do for Limes Price, each, $8.00. Pastils, $1.00 each, or 6 for $5.50. Exhibitors’ Supplies —. &. FULTON Co., 160 West Lake Street, Chicago. ANN WILSON AGENCY I/ads, Extra People and Children for Moving Pictures 1482 Broadway, New York City.