Exhibitors Herald (1926)

56 EXHIBITORS HERALD November 13, 1926 Eleanor Boardman and Roy D’Arcy, featured players, in a scene from “Bardelys the Magnificent,” which King Vidor directed for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. William Danielsis responsible for the photography. This production opened October 31 at the Capitol in New York for pre-release. The general releaseis scheduled for November 21. Divide” was Western, and it has about twice as many kinks in its unfoldment — as might be expected of twice as many authors. The pictures have Conway Tearle in common as the crapshooter who wins the girl in question and there isn't a great deal of difference otherwise save as mentioned. I never could see any good reason for picturizing a play like “The Great Divide,” box office notwithstanding, and so I am at a loss to know why they made “My Official Wife.” Maybe the industry can go on broadening the field of its appeal with pictures of this type, but I doubt it. The stage, overwhelmed with this kind of stuff, is worse off financially from year to year. It looks like the wrong sort of thing, to me, but I don’t matter. We’ll see what the box office reports from exhibitors say about it. They don’t miss. NOT REVIEWS In view of the foregoing, this is a good place to insert the customary monthly explanation to new subscribers that items appearing in these columns may be piffle or whatnot but are never under any circumstances to be construed as “box office reviews.” All this is familiar to the general body of readers, but circulation expansion necessitates its frequent reiteration. These talks are offered weekly as a sort of blanket reply to the question everybody asks everybody else, “How’d you like the picture?” Since anybody asks that of anybody, attaching no importance to the replies and almost never agreeing with them, anybody that feels inclined to do so writes these talks. Makes it sort o’ congenial all around and, with all this made plain, nobody’s tbe loser — nor gainer. The thing works out like this: I say, “I saw ‘Ladies at Play’ at the Oriental theatre last week.” That’s an unfortunate break, as you’d probably reply to that particular remark, “Yes, I know, but what was the name of the picture?” But if the picture were called “Nellie of Neuresthenia” or something like that, for instance, you’d reply, “How did you like the picture?” Then I’d answer with the words written under the caption — LADIES AT PLAY T _L HIS was a riot at the Oriental theatre last week — where pictures figure usually as something for the flappers to doze through between Mr. Ash’s gallops. They shrieked at this, with good reason. It’s a scream. The yarn’s about the eccentric millionaire who leaves his fortune to the girl on condition she is married within three days after the reading of the will. It is complicated by imposed necessity of getting two old maids’ approval of the husband. Short cut to this approval is made via compromising circumstances and how compromising they become! You’ll be surprised. But the thing is done in the manner of Hal Roach’s better two-reelers, employing as strange an assortment of players as you’ll find in a given cast of characters, and it’s all in fun. The Oriental crowd took it that way and had the time of their lives. Doris Kenyon is the girl who must get married and at this point I wish to vote for keeping her in this sort of stuff. She does it much better than she does drama. Lloyd Hughes is the selected husband. Louise Fazenda is better than ever as one of the old maids and Ethel Wales is the other. Virginia Lee Corbin is Miss Kenyon’s little sister and demonstrates that Clara Bow isn’t the only girl who can do the sort of thing she does. Hallam Cooley and John Patrick are first rate night club types and Philo McCullough registers positively as the hotel clerk under whose eyes everything happens. Alfred E. Green directed it in great shape. Subtitles are always crisp and sometimes hot — as are individual scenes — but it’s all in fun and the Oriental audience didn’t mind. Cherry phosphates purchased at the Deauville, New York, do what residents of the far places imagine they would, and the thing is sophisticated — -as that word is used — from end to end. But it’s funny, and that’s an expansive blanket. PARAMOUNT’S 17 THEMES F AMOUS PLAYERS-LASKY’S date book sent to exhibitors by way of heralding the next group of pictures contains, among other Arthur Maude directed this Romance Production, “The Mona Lisa,” which is an Educational release done in Technicolor. Hedda Hopper and Craufurd Kent have the leading roles. Tiffany Productions present “College Days,” with Marceline Day, James Harrison, Brooks Benedict, Ed. A. Murphy, Duane Thompson and others in the cast. Photography is by Milton Moore and Mack Stengler. Twenty-five football stars and a coach of the University of California are in the cast of this production. interesting sections, a listing of Paramount pictures classified as to theme. Seventeen themes are used for this purpose and are designated as follows: 1. Big City Life Dramas 2. Comedy— (a) Automobile Comedy Dramas (b) Co-star Feature Comedies (c) Female Star (d) Male Star (e) Small town Comedy Dramas 3. Crook Dramas 4. Domestic Dramas. 5. Divorce Problems 6. Father Love Dramas 7. Gown Pictures 8. Great White Way Dramas 9. Historical Dramas 10. Mother Love Dramas 11. Outdoor Dramas 12. Sea Dramas 13. Secret Service 14. Small Town Dramas 15. South Sea Settings 16. Stage Life Dramas 17. Road Show Calibre The list of themes (?) is : something to ponder over in itself, but it becomes more than interesting when the following table is assembled to show the number of pictures grouped under each heading: CLASS l 3 4 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 NUMBER 88 230 35 76 28 2 42 12 28 13 76 23 8 23 17 19 11 A lot of fun is to be had in doping the table this way and that. And the record of Paramount down the years is there, staring you in the face, if you harbor any hunch that this apportionment of product isn't what it might have been. “THE QUARTERBACK” I'D heard a lot about “The Quarterback” before it got to Chicago, the picture being widely exhibited prior to its opening here and gaining many glowing reports in “What the Picture Did For Me,” but nobody had told me about the trade joke in it. Maybe it’s supposed to be one of those open secrets, but the thing looks to me like a great piece of kidding as well as a great picture, Mr.