The educational screen (c1922-c1956])

June, IQ2S The Theatrical Field 275 the wistful boy, and Emily Fitzroy as the mother could not be finer. Burr Mcintosh as Bill Tolliver and George Bancroft as the vicious endest son are excellent. Elinor Fair plays the girl with charm and restraint. A picture well worth seeing and thinking over. (Theatrical) (Adult) THE NE*RE-DO-WELL (Paramount) The best thing about this picture is Thomas Meighan, and the next best is the setting, scenes for which were obtained in Panama. Lila Lee, Gertrude Astor, and John Miltern give the star capable support, but the story seems somehow very trivial, lacking the true Rex Beach spirit. (Theatrical only) (Adult) THE CHRISTIAN (Goldwyn) An earnest and straightforward rendering of a very famous story, made even more worthwhile by excellent characterization. Richard Dix as John Storm does perhaps his best screen work so far. Mae Busch displays charm and dignity as Glory. The scenes photographed on the Isle of Man, and in and about London, carry conviction because of their authenticity; and a mob scene in Trafalgar Square comes as an impressive climax. Although the picture is not one that merits unlimited superlatives, it is nevertheless, a fine effort. (Theatrical only) (Adult) WHERE THE PAVEMENT ENDS (Metro) Rex Ingram has turned to the tropics for his latest work, and made a good picture of John Russell's short story about the love of a missionary's daughter for a handsome young native chief. Alice Terry and Ramon Navarro are the central figures, assisted by Edward Connelly as the missionary, and Harry Morey, who makes a fine study of a dissolute sea captain. Mr. Ingram has listened to the public's (or might it be the exhibitors') demands to the extent of making two endings for his story. The logical one parts the lovers, and ends in a minor key, in the director's usual style, and the trite one proves the young chief to be a white man's son, sending the lovers back to civilization and happiness. It was this reviewer's misfortune to see the happy ending. (Theatrical only) (Adult) WITHIN THE LAW (First National) Bayard Veiller's story of Mary Turner, the girl who was unjustly sentenced to prison, and who afterward revenged herself upon the world by directing a group of clever swindlers, keeping always just "within the law." With a fine cast, a good story, and excellent direction. Norma Talmadge comes up to expectations. Joseph Kilgour and Jack Mulhall play the rich employer and his son, and Eileen Percy and Lew Cody do unusually good work as two of the swindlers. Not a great picture, but a thoroughly satisfactory one of its kind. (Theatrical) (Adult) SOULS FOR SALE (Goldwyn) Rupert Hughes, so expert in showing up the little faults and foibles of us humans, has attempted a spectacle and fallen down hard on the job. He has tried to tell the story of a girl who married in haste, repented in haste, and made her own way in the world at leisure. Incidentally he wished to spread a little Hollywood propaganda. But the incidentals got away from him, and grew to such proportions that what with giving them the footage they demanded and spinning out the thread of the story itself, he has given us in the end merely an incohorent hodge-podge. There are "big scenes" but they have no purpose; there are "punches" but they have no aim. True, we do get glimpses behind scenes in the movies, but the glimpses are so brief as to be unsatisfactory, and some of the "real" situations are unpardonably exaggerated. The woman beside me complained bitterly that they were running the film too fast, but it wasn't that. It was just that the director had so much to show us that he couldn't show us much of anything. The cast, composed of Eleanor Boardman, Mae Busch, Lew Cody, and Frank Mayo, is assisted by some thirty or forty famous Hollywood personages whom it may thrill you to see as they really are. But to take in the picture as a whole, you had best choose an evening when you are feeling well up to anything and your mind is geared to racing speed. (Theatrical only) (Adult) WHAT A WIFE LEARNED (First National) To have a career or to have a husband — that is the question that annoys the heroine and causes all the complications. Sheila Dome goes west to devote herself to a literary career, but without meaning to she falls in love with a serious young rancher, who swears he will never interfere with her ambition. But when, after they are married, he is dragged away from his beloved ranch, to idle in a little flat white