Camera (April 1921-April 1922)

Page Sixteen The Digest of the Motion Picture Industry' CAMERA f Special Rates to Professionals 25 Professional Pictures for $6.00 Character studies taken by a motion picture man who knows what motion picture people want. PARALTA, the Artist Photographer 542 South Spring Street Open Eveninp.s and Sundays by Appointment TKe British Field And All the News About British Production Is Covered by the "MOTION PICTURE STUDIO" The only journal solely devoted to news of BRITISH FILMS, BRITISH DIRECTORS and BRITISH ARTISTS It Has Its Finger on the Pulse of the British Studios You can only keep in touch with the British producing field and American directors and artists in England by reading and advertising in "The Motion Picture Studio" Write for rates and specimen copy to 93 Longacre, London, W. C, England. Subscription rates — 3 months, $1.25; 6 months, $2.25; I year, $4.25 625^^ South Olive Street 'B Jack Bean's Rill Dress and Tuxedo Shop 308-5 Loew-5 State Bld^. SevmtK and Boadway Pico 4861 alio tutrA &ls SUSPICIOUS SIDELIGHTS ON "HAIL THE WOMAN By Ted LeBerthon After seeing "Hail the Woman," and reading the reviews of that photodrama in the local press, I herewith submit a number of specious "vest pocket" reviews, done after the manner of some of the literary figures of the day, to wit: George Ade, James Branch Cabell, H. C. Witwer, Orison Swett Marden, George Jean Nathan, and Sinclair Lewis. George Ade Florence Vidor as the young thing with a Fifth Avenue phizz and a stern New England up-bringing, after shedding enough tears to baptize the entire Methodist population, gets a strangle-hold on the affections of a benighted parent who possesses a full set of shin curtains, a narrow interpretation of the Good Book and the heart of a Prohibition enforcement ofBcer. John Griffith Wray, the director of this sob festival, did some great work with the near-Thespians at his command, a fact which will probably be soon publicly advertised as being due to a hearty indulgence of Tanlac or Nuxated Iron. Hail the Woman will prove equally popular with the Woolworth trade and the gilded swine who own tirst mortgages and college diplomas. James Branch Cabell And a stout ill-made youth, scarce apt to flourish a trustworthy sword, being unbeloved of the comely Florence, stole out through the dusky night in those hours when the moon is pearly and fair hamadryads may be ensnared in forests of surpassing loveliness. And upon passing by a strange chateau in this enchanted wilderness wherein dwelt an unknown poet, he beheld but not in transport the fair Florence with the most beautiful eyes he had ever envisioned engaged in rapt converse with the silver-haired bard. And he bethought himself that mystic smoke arose from a most marvelous cigarette which she held in her veritable flowers of hands. And he informed her father, and the tale now known as Hail the Woman was made possible. For a certain director rightly named Wray exerted a golden sorcery upon the characters in this devious panorama of a father with a baby in a gorgeous, my.sterious city, and of a wife who became transported to that other world which only exists between dawn and sunrise. Orison Swett'Marden Hail the Woman proves that you can be what you will to be, though walls of granite intervene. Florence Vidor believed in herself and the principles of honest salesmanship. She proves that Woman's day has come and that all of us can be successful in 1922 if we hold the right thought. Madge Bellamy was a victim of wrong thinking. Had some one presented her with a copy of The Magnetic Life or The Culture of Courage, she would have led a clean, wholesome life, and would today be a good one hundred per cent American. She might have become another Carnegie or Dr. Frank Crane. John Griffith Wray proves by this forceful, optimistic production that right living is the only path to power. The entire cast acquitted themselves as respectable, decent citizens should, in any work of art, mechanics, industry, finance or commerce. H. C. Witwer Hail the Woman is a regular picture for regular people. It's a hundred to one shot that the neighbors will lean over the tall palings and give you an earful before you're twenty-four hours older. Thin gal Florence "Vidor is a darb, the rest of the girls and boys behave like sure-fire troupers, and this feller John Griffith Wray must have the kick of TNT, horse-linament, and the Republican party underneath his mussed-up hair cut. Put it down in your note-books that this gent will be heard from further, and that his directorial salary will soon be swollen to the proportions of the national debt. George Jean Nathan Hail the Woman is banal, ridiculous and hollow. It nurses all the prejudices of the herd, and will be eaten up in toto by Y. M. C. A. secretaries, chambermaids and prurient Methodist clergymen. I'll wager a half interest in the Smart Set that it receives the endorsement of all Rotary Clubs, Foreign Missions, the Ku Klux Klan and the American Legion. To feature a pearl of an actress like Florence Vidor in such tosh and balderdash is an outrage to one's sense of humor and aesthetics alike. But such is the "art" of the motion picture! The direction of John Griffith Wray was all that saved the picture from being released as a slap-stick comedy. What is the country coming to? Why film such drivel when one has such available material as the Decameron, Balzac's Droll Stories, and Mile, de Maupin to select from? The story itself is so bad that it might have been written by the Honorable Warren Gamaliel Harding or the head janitor in the Woolworth Building. Without the transmuting touch of the reliable Wray, Hail the Woman would not be flt to be seen by any but United States Congressmen, bootblacks, and students of scenario writing. Sinclair Lewis Hail the Woman is first and last addressed to Main Street audiences. But it's a great story, beautifully acted. Florence Vidor divine. The direction of Wray superb. Ince deserves congratulation. Would like to see this combination in Zola's La Terre or Flaubert's Madame Bovary. Florence Vidor attuned to beauty and strangeness. Theodore Roberts real and grim in role. Lloyd Hughes realistic and bumpkinish. Meredith a striking fellow. Madge Bellamy and Rodney Hildebrand good, but not enough of them. Censors probaly to blame. It will probably do the producers as much good to holler as It has done the thinkers of the country to cry out against the bosses of the Republican and Democratic parties. The country is too full of Elks, Knights of Pythias, and followers of the New Thought. "TOO MUCH MARRIED' (Associated Photoplays) " 'Too Much Married' lives pretty well up to the title selected for it, in fact very much so far as the heroine is concerned. She's actually married to one man while two old friends, misunderstanding matters, insist upon believing her married to another. And so the complications arise in this fairly amusing farce comedy that offers an average entertainment which might possibly have been made into an even better picture through stronger and more humorous situations and by-play." — Wid's. " 'Too Much Married' will make you laugh, but if you expect anything new in the line of farces you will be disappointed. And, yet, there is that touch of directorial ingenuity that makes for worth-while entertainment." — Moving Picture World. "THE GOLDEN GALLOWS" "Of the late reelases starring Miss Du Pont, this one is the best one of them all. In the first place, it gives her a chance to do something besides just look pretty. . . . It is a part that would seem to have been made to order for her, and she is excellent in it. And the story is interesting. Though the theme is old, it is treated in a manner quite original and has an unusual twist to it." — Exhibitors Trade Review.