Exhibitors Herald (Dec 1924-Mar 1925)

50 EXHIBITORS HERALD Eebruary 21, 1925 her style she goes on ahead and lets it catch up if it may, and she doesn’t really need a picture, any^vay. “A Broadway Butterfly” also gives Willard Louis another choice role and contains Dorothy Devore and Cullen Landis in the suppo'sedly leading parts. The former overdoes the demure small town girl and the latter isn’t built for impersonating a stage door John. The picture is about chorus girls and men who pursue them and the glittering accompaniments of such stories are more glittering than ever. It’s super-jazz stuff and very frank. Now Let’s Close the Bathroom Door Henry W. Gauding, Lincoln theatre, Pittsburgh, says he and his clientele have seen enough bathrooms. His letter appears in “The Contributor’s Column,” but he doesn’t say nearly enough. Bathrooms are old stuff in the esteem of the “realist” school of picture makers. They’re in the operating room now. Somebody suggested that the plumbing interests might be behind the bathroom boom, but I doubt it, just as I doubt that the American Medical Association has anything to do with the current crop of clinical close-ups. I think the realists are wholly responsible, and I think they are sincere victims of untempered enthusiasm. The tendency is regrettable but the cure is simple. It consists simply of a mandatory order to directors that each shall attend five or six theatre exhibitions of his pictures (not invitation premieres with the claque well coached) and observe public reaction to his surgical sequences. The fact is that they make the public sick. HERE’S THE GOOD NEWS ABOUT BEBE DANIELS fivXHIBITORS have been complaining in “What the Picture Did For Me” that Bebe Daniels hasn’t been doing her stuff of late. One says she ought to get back her Realart pep and another opines that there must be a clause in her contract restraining her from smiling. The good news of the moment is that she’s the genuine Bebe in “Miss Bluebeard.” “Miss Bluebeard” is another French comedy, not quite so sophisticated as “Open All Night,” but still snappy. Bebe bounces through in a manner reminding you of the old days opposite Harold Lloyd. Raymond Griffith is there, too, and he’s a fivereeler all by himself.' There are many others who do many things and if you like farce you can have a great time watching the goings on. But don’t expect your maiden aunt to admit she liked it. “THE DANCERS” IS TIMELY MATERIAL c V_^URRENT tendencies are dealt with differently in “The Dancers,” the Fox picturization of the play by Gerald Du Maurier and Viola Tree. The things you think will happen don’t, and the surprises are logical. George O’Brien continues his climb to eminence with another individual perform ance. Madge Bellamy and Alma Rubens are the feminine principals. Emmett Flynn directed. South America and England alternately provide backgrounds for the action, elaborate treatment governing in both cases. Toward the end there’s a kick I’ll not spoil for you by telling. “YESTERDAY’S LOVE” ORDINARY PROGRAM w ERE it not for the trim manner in which Paul Bern directed this story with Pat O’Malley and Agnes Ayres it would have been awfully tiresome stuff. I dropped into a neighborhood theatre — the Buckingham — the other night to note the effect it had on an audience. They have a lady orchestra of ten pieces, good projection and comfortable seats. But it was just a picture to that crowd, nothing more. They applauded the trailer for “A Sainted Devil” but neglected to applaud the feature. Even the auto racing with the train and the auto wreck — the 10,987th one in pictures — didn’t eret a rise out of them. What About Those Fairy Stories? “Peter Pan” is panning out in some places and petering out in others. “The Thief of Bagdad,” reckoned on a basis of less available box office record, seems to be getting a somewhat better break. Both should be landslide successes, for they are ideal pictures. Both are splendid fairy tales, each delivering its nice little lesson more pleasantly and pointedly than any of the bedroom dramas pitted against them. Both represent courage in investment and faith in £lms. I have an idea that the sponsors of both calculated as a not remote possibility the use of red ink in making ledger entries, yet I doubt not that repeat runs, revivals and such will alter the hue of the writing fluid if immediate events do not. Reception accorded these pictures to date has demonstrated at least one important fact. The pictures are doing better than expected because the picture public is not so far behind as it used to be. The market today absorbs a ffner product than was profitably vendible a while back. The communities where these pictures Sop are isolated islands not yet engulfed in the rapidly rising flood of general enlightenment. They become fewer and smaller with the years. These fairy tales serve a double purpose. They provide splendid entertainment and they reveal the true state of affairs out there beyond the ticket wicket. STUNTS GALORE IN “RANGE TERROR” OB CUSTER’S “The Range Terror” is conventional. It doesn’t differ materially from thousands of other Westerns. Everything happens in regular sequence, just as you’ve seen scores of times before, the star’s stunts breaking in as the best things in the picture. The Texas Ranger finds a dead man, learns that his sister is to arrive from the East and determines to run down the mur derer. The sister, to gather evidence against the villian and murderer, gets a job in a cabaret owned by the villain. Comes the big fight, the arrest of the villain and the happy fade-out. Bob Custer needs stronger stuff than this. And should have it. He can ride, and punch and make love. And he should have an attractive leading lady. Don’t Worry While They’re Kicking People who make their living out of motion pictures worry too much about the knocks. There is nothing in the record of human progress to warrant it. Knocks are sure signs of health. In America the knock is a fundamental institution. If a thing is not knocked you can write it down that it’s on its way out. Americans are not a readily satisfied people. Only comparative satisfaction is possible in this land. When knocking ceases, praise ceases also and the end is just around the bend. People knock pictures because they believe they can be made better and they want them best. “Want them” are the two important words in that sentence. When, if ever, people do not want them, they’ll quit knocking and that’s the time to worry. Don’t worry while they’re kicking. “THE GREAT DIVIDE” A GREAT PICTURE H ENRY MILLER’S famous stage play, “The Great Divide,” has been made into a splendid photoplay by Metro Goldwyn. Alice Terry has the leading feminine role and Conway Tearle is Stephen. For sheer beauty nothing can compare with the shots of the Grand Canyon. Too bad they were not made in color, but the photography is remarkable. There’s a better thrill near the end, in the race before the flood, than could be produced on the stage, and it is replete with tense moments, good acting and careful direction. Wallace Beery is good as the carefree, lustful wanderer. JACKIE’S BACK WHERE THEY WANTED HIM T J.N “The Rag Man” Jackie Coogan is back where exhibitors playing some of his other pictures said they wanted him. His sponsors seem to have realized that he is growing up and resolved to give his vast following another glimpse of the best little actor that ever stood before a Cooper Hewitt in the role and makeup we like best. And the picture is there ! The last scene, where he and Ginsberg, his partner in the rag business— now wealthy — are playing golf and ride from tee to tee in their car is a scream. The picture has all the usual pathetic touches of his earlier successes.