Canadian Moving Picture Digest (May 1925-May 1926)

Page Two CANADIAN MOVING PICTURE DIGEST Compiled Class C Reviews of “The Spotlight” CLASS C—“PLAY THESE IF YOU MUST”.--Photo plays suitable for use as double features—or on off days. CLASS C “THE MAN WHO FOUND HIMSELF” (Famous Players) We confess that it is a trifle difficult to know just how to classify this picture. Meighan has a following, and a likeable personality, and is the recipient of wide spread publicity by his emplovers Famous Players. This would seem to denote that he is Class B. On the other hand, this and all of his other recent stories have been so poor as to be undeniably Class C. Therefore we feel justified in giving this that classification not only because it deserves it, but because of the Box Office disappointments theatre owners have suffered at the hands of its immediate predecessors. Tommy in this is one of the noblest guys you could dream of. He is a banker of sorts, shoulders the blame for another’s crime, and goes to prison for it. There he is an uplift movement all by himself. Boy! but he’s noble! Virginia Valli is the girl, and her sweetness and taelnt are almost wasted. Frank Morgan, Lynn Fontaine, Julia Hoyt and Ralph Morgan are accomplices in this travelogue of Sing Sing from the inside. Tommy is —Tommy, middle aged and deliberate in movement and undramatic in action. The entire production makes one wonder how does Famous Players get that way. * * * * CLASS C “THE COAST OF FOLLY” (Famous Players) Countess Gloria takes a nose dive in this utterly inept photoplay. Let us admit at the outset that it will be successful in most of the big down town first run houses where it is shown. The glamor of glittering Gloria’s present vogue will insure that. But after that it will be a very poor Class C Box Office attraction, and deservedly so. The original story by Coningsby Dawson was a best seller, and so was widely read. Famous Players, aided and abetted by Allan Dwan, usually one of our most dependable directors, has butchered the original to make a Swanson holiday. Palm Beach is the Coast of Folly, so of course there are some scenes presumably taken there. These are not very exciting though there’s where the trouble starts. Gloria as a headstrong miss (quite mature and sophisticated in appearance) plays around with Larry Fay, a young married man. His wife a schemer seeks trouble since Gloria is rich. She gets it. The story in the film version is comparatively unimportant owing to the way it is handled. It might be termed a drama of “close ups,” for not only is the star thus photographed at the slightest provocation, but she has generously permitted every one but the extras to have lingering close-ups of their uninspired countenances to permeate the picture. Gloria essays a dual role, a young girl and her mother, and comes an awful cropper in the act. As the girl she is passable, but as the mother she depicts on the shady side of sixty—a palpable error —she is about as bad as can be imagined. Instead of a dashing, painted and powdered lady with a past in the middle forties, she gives us a grimacing, stiff-jointed, almost decrepit crone. Two more such pictures as this and the lady Countess will become a liability rather than an asset to her employees. Dorothy Cummings as the scheming wife contributes the best acting in the piece. Alec Francis is good as always, and Eugene Besserer as the nurse of the younger Gloria is fine and sympathetic, but the others deserve the merciful veil of silence cast over them. However, Anthony Jowitt, the alleged leading man, is so very wooden and impossible that we cannot refrain from pinning a leather medal upon his narrow, Kolege-Kut clothed chest. The theme is offensive, the acting worse, the settings, cheap interiors for the most part, undistinguished; and even the photography is not up to par. A sad. sad effort to emanate from any prominent studio, particularly since -it features one of the supposedly brightest luminaries of the screen firmament. * * * * CLASS C “THE MYSTIC” (Metro-Goldwyn) Tod Browning directed “The Unholy Three,” he also directed and wrote this banality. On account of the first mentioned masterpiece much should be forgiven him, but scarcely this. There is the germ of a good idea in the story, but it has never come to full fruition. It is draggy, particularly in the middle reels, not very well cast, except in one or two minor parts, and is very indistinctly photographed in these days of crystal clear camera work. It features Aileen Pringle as an Hungarian gypsy fortune teller, and Conway Tearle as an adventurer who induces her to come to America with her entourage to aid him in some slick blackmailing schemes of his. It is no part of him, nor does Aileen particularly distinguish herself. Mitchell Lewis plays a flabby old gypsy “professor,” and does not register. Neither does Gladys Hulette who is handicapped by an inane role and bad photography. George Ober contributes an intense bit as a jealous gypsy. The picture will do nothing to enhance the reputation of any one concerned. It is not entertainment, and after all entertainment is the one and only commodity you are selling to your public. * * * * CLASS C “IN THE NAME OF LOVE” _(Famous Players) In the name of love (or anything else) why do Famous Players force wooden-faced Riccardo Cortez upon movie audiences as a feature hero? This fellow’s a heavy, nothing else. We are also getting quite a dose of Greta Nissen these days—her name sounds somewhat like a sparkling mineral water too—but she is easy to look at, and is improving, and if Famous Players do not insist on making her their Paramount Weekly, she will be all very well. The idea of this sickly little story was taken from Bulwer Lytton’s ‘Lady of Lyons”—written over half a century ago— and bringing this idea up to date has not been a startling success. Cortez is ponderous as the youth returned from America to his erstwhile peasant sweetheart. Great Nissen—who having become wealthy has also become a snob. Wallace Beery is funny as a rejected Count, Lillian Leighton and Raymond Hatton also have parts. This is not exactly a bad picture, but, by golly, it’s not a good one. This is our story and we'll stick to it. Co Buying Pictures Read The Digest Advertising Pages. oogle ————————E——————