Exhibitors Herald (Dec 1925-Mar 1926)

90 EXHIBITORS HERALD February 20, 1926 and those present pronouncing the show well worth the money for whatever reason. On top of which Mae Tinee — who may mean this, that or nothing to you — devoted her Sunday space in The Chicago Tribune to telling how good it is. VX7ILLIAM E. TRAGSDORF, ^’Trags theatre, Neillsville, Wis., drops me this casual letter which I’m sure you’ll want to read. Mr. Tragsdorf is, as you know if you read “What the Picture Did For Me,” a man of definite opinions and gifted in expressing them. He writes: Took a flyer up to Mpls. to see the family and while I was there took in a few of the New Ones. That is, NEW, so far as the Brush Apes out in the Tall Grass are concerned. For the benefit of the boys out in the Tall Uncut, this is the way they looked to me : LORD JIM. The opening title says that it is a serious attempt to put Conrad’s book into film. I would class it as a very fine production for the MEN in the audience. The women will not care for it. In fact, Mrs. Trag. told me she did not like it. I thought it was very good, due, probably, to the fact that I had spent many of my young and giddy years in Panama where the scenes were natural and the story could have happened. The title is a total loss, except for the few High Brows who may have read Conrad. LADY WINDERMERE’S FAN. Directed by Lubitsch. The acting of Irene Rich, May McAvoy, Ronald Coleman and Bert Lytell was very good. The direction was of the very best. Mrs. Trag. said this was wonderful, and I almost concurred in her opinion. The only objection I had to this picture was that it was too damned slow for small towns. There was too much posing. It might go over in Small Towns, but I doubt it. However, I claim it was a very clever picture and the direction was above par. THE EAGLE. This is probably Rudy’s best since “The Four Horsemen.’’ It is something on the order of Doug’s “Mark of Zorro’’ with the exception of being a costume picture. Not so much soft soap in it as there has been in Rudy’s last four or five, and more action. Should please the men as well as the women. However, due to his last four or five flops out in the sticks, we would have a hard time getting anyone with good sense in to see him. MIKE. Due to hilarity caused by Charley Murray and Ford Sterling, this is a beaner of a comedy. It is not a RIOT as Metro would try to make you believe, but it is a hoop la of a picture, if you can get them in with any such fool title as that. The picture as a whole is very good, and it is not all comedy. There are moments of pathos which will aLmost make you weep, and there is enough action stuff to please the most rabid serial fans. As a whole, a very fine picture. Sally O’Neill, as Mike, is pretty good, and she has three kids and a dog and a goose which help her very much. The first two I saw in vaudeville houses and the music and projection was of the most terrible. The last two in regular movie palaces, and the projection was fairly good; the music was better. I have room in these pages, or others which I may occupy with my stuff if it is sufficiently meritorious and voluminous, for other good letters from exhibitors about pictures which they have seen in other than their own theatres and therefore cannot write about in the regular report department. Who’ll be first to repay Mr. Tragsdorf for his letter by writing another? You can even guess about the drawing power of the pictures, as Mr. Tragsdorf does, if you like to do that, as so many do, but I shall label them as guesses for the good of the cause. — T. O. SERVICE. Anna Q. Nilsson and Lewis Stone are starred in First National’s “Too Much Money.” Robert Cain is also shown in the bottom picture. ORDINARILY, WHILE I ENJOY the pictures Marion Davies stars in, and while I appreciate her versatility, I feel that her face is devoid of that warmth that is essential for some of the characters she portrays. I think that in her dual role in “Lights of Old Broadway” she is better than I have ever seen her. To my way of thinking the entire picture is splendid. A whimsical note prevails from start to finish, and just when I thought the humor was going to drop precipitately over the brink of low comedy it kept its footing beautifully. The characterizations of Conrad Nagel as the ardent lover, and of Charles McHugh as the lovable but hot-tempered Irish father, merit the highest commendation. The other characters keep up with the pace set for them. The delicacy and ease with which the historical background is maintained should not be passed without mention. Young Thomas Edison and little Teddy Roosevelt are introduced in a most interesting. manner. There is some vitally alive about the picture that I liked — Fanchon Kauders. 'THREE THINGS WERE HANdied well at a show which I attended at the Rialto, Elgin, the other night. Two were the pictures and the third brings credit to Will Newman, manager of the Great States houses in that busy neighbor city of Chicago. When a small fire started in an adjoining building and the smoke entering the theatre started some of the patrons toward the exits, Manager Newman quietly ordered the orchestra leader to swing his musicians into a rollicking tune while he got all the ventilation possible into the house. Patrons who had started to leave returned to their seats and others who had hesitated at entering forgot their hesitation. That’s real management. And it would have been foolish to miss such a good program anyway. It was a splendid challenge to some of the misstate ments and exaggerations heard last week from advocates of federal censorship at the conference in Chicago of the Federal Motion Picture Council in America. One speaker had said that if there happened to be a good long feature on the program it usually was accompanied by an “obnoxious comedy.” Certainly the Rialto had a convincing rebuttal for that assertion. “Lights of Old Broadway” was accompanied by Bobby Vernon’s “Slippery* Feet,” a Pathe multiple picture showing Annette Ivellerman’s training stunts and by some color pictures of Yale’s campus. If there was anything “obnoxious” on this program only the socalled reformers could find it, but of course that might not be difficult for a person with distorted ideas of how to improve motion pictures. Marion Davies is not only good to look upon but she again proves she can act in the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer picture. Laurence Eyre, the author, and Carey Wilson, the adaptor, have accomplished that too often difficult feat of making educational material entertaining. History is worked into the picture in a delighting way in flashes of Teddy Roosevelt, the boy, with a mark of 100 in hishistory lessons but 50 in conduct; Tony Pastor and his theatre; the boys Weber and Fields in their first tryout; the first experiment with electric lighting on old Fourteenth street; and possibly especially in the young man, Thomas A. Edison. Introduction of the latter character was particularly interesting to me in that I saw the picture on the day the Wizard of Electricity was celebrating his 79th birthday. Miss Davies plays the dual role of Anne and Fely, twin sisters, the former of whom was adopted into the family of Lambert De Rhonde (played by Frank Currier,) the “aristocrack,” as he is termed contemptuously by Shamus O’Tandy, the squatter, who adopted Fely, lighthearted variety girl at Pastor’s. Charles McHugh as Shamus ran a close second even to Conrad Nagel as Dirk in the opinion of the audience, at least if its applause is a criterion. Monta Bell, director, did good work in handling the difficult situations required by the dual characterization. — Ernest Rovelstad. SLIPPERY FEET” GIVES BOBBY Vernon a good opportunity for some impersonations well intermingled with comedy errors, particularly when he is tricked by the rival for his hostess’ heart to dress as a notorious bandit. The constable and his helper catapult into the scene from the seats of a tandem bicycle (somehow this reversion to the Keystone Cop type seemed out of place and it didn’t draw much of a laugh). Then the chase begins, with Bobby and the real bandit getting in a few novelties before a mirror and with the mirror removed. Likewise there is a laugh in the alternating demands of the bandit that the guests drop their jewels into a wastebasket and of Bobby that they take them back. The Annette Kellerman pictures did not draw a very enthusiastic hand despite the novelty. Miss Kellerman appeared as a troupe of five going through calisthenics. It was interesting to me and the audience interest’s lagging might be accounted for by the fact that she appeared to be at a distance, possibly a mechanical necessity. The color pictures of Yale University, parts of a series,, were well received. — Ernest Rovelstad.