Exhibitors Herald (1927)

38 EXHIBITORS HERALD November 12, 1927 rHIS department contains news, information and gossip on current productions. It aims to supply service which will assist the exhibitor in keeping in touch with developments in connection with pictures and picture personalities — and what these are doing at the box office. No prophecies on the entertainment value of pictures are made. Opinions expressed are simply those of the author or of his contributors and the reader is requested to consider them only as such. — EDITOR’S NOTE. THE PHOTOGRAPHY IS GOOD T HE present being, perhaps, the fourth week since mention of motion picture reviewers as false prophets and rank pretenders, a start into the subject may be accomplishing by divulging a relatively well known subterfuge of the misinformative gentry belabored by boss and circumstance to pretense of expertness. I refer to the line, “the photography is good.” You've seen it, of course. This line is the hallmark of the fake reviewer (of course there are no other kinds) and its genesis should be apparent. It came into use in the dead past, when motion picture producer, actor, etc., was disposed to raizell about (and with) uncomplimentary comment on a picture. The person writing about a bad picture, in those days, inserted the quoted line as a buffer, a defense, and as the least important deceit that could be employed for the purpose. As a matter of fact, practically all photography is good (although some is excellent, wonderful, etc.) and further, nobody goes to see a picture merely because someone has said it exhibits good photography. With the passing of the day when a producer, actor, etc., was disposed to raizell about these things, it was reasonable to drop out the buffer; but reviewers, engaged in a wholly unreasonable business at best, cannot be expected to do reasonable things. And so the line endures, a fact brought to attention last week by Mae Tinee’s use of a two-column heading in The Chicago Tribune to extol the photography involved in “The Garden of Allah.” The picture, of course, is not merely a photographic exhibit, although Miss Tinee plainly indicates that belief. (I did not read the rest of her comment, of course.) As a matter of fact, this “Garden of Allah” is leagues ahead of Rex Ingram’s recent productions. That doesn’t mean that it is a whiz, a whale, a wow or any of those things, for it isn’t; but it does mean that the time spent in viewing the picture (by the oversigned) was counted a pleasant evening. What more should one expect of a picture? Alice Terry continues a regrettably frigid heroine in the thing, a yarn about a monk who broke his vows and then did what could be done about mending them, but the rest of the folks are pretty logical. The Ingram bow to Continental influence obtrudes in several rather horrible closeups of beggars, cripples, etc., but the Ingram continuity and By T. O. SERVICE coherence is much as of old. There are several insets (mere exhibits of customs, manners, etc.) which give the picture an additional value. And, as Miss Tinee stated, incompletely, the photography is excellent. Indeed, the sandstorm is the best I have seen. “THE FAIR CO ED ” Delightful little Marion Davies, her flaxen tresses cruelly short and her lovely girlishness radiantly highlighted by college customs and costumes, dances merrily and charmingly through “The Fair Co-Ed,” a fresh, sweet story of campus life, love and basketball. The picture was shown at the Chicago theatre last week. The throngs of ardent basketball fans who swarmed the spacious auditorium of the theatre found it difficult to contain their enthusiasm when Marion Bright (portrayed by Miss Davies) snatched victory for her beloved Bingham from the very clutches of hated Claxton by throwing a basket from the latter’s very goal line in the last split-second of play. Applause broke out again and again during the spirited contest, only to be eclipsed when it became evident that the winner of the contest would be won, in turn, by the coach whose confidence in her ability had been so richly deserved. In none of her pictures has Miss Davies shown so brilliantly, as actress and as wit, as in “The Fair Co-Ed.” Indeed, so keenly pointed are her jests — cunningly conveyed by captions that would make a very interesting little pamphlet if assembled for publication— that the happy spectator little realizes that a story of tremendous struggle between colleges and codes is being unfolded. This intense absorption in the star carries the story to the very verge of the game, and then beyond, administering with consummate effect the lesson that teamwork, sincerity, steadfastness and stick-to-it-iveness are prime requisites for success on the basketball floor as well as in the class room. It is to be hoped that “The Fair Co-Ed” will be followed by many other pictures dealing with college life and sports. Indeed, the idea of surrounding an important athletic contest with interest-building circumstances and showing the sure results of proper training, purpose and perseverance is an excellent one. Much credit is due the genius who contrived this splendid combination of superb entertainment and superlative doctrine. SOMETHING-OTTA-BE-DUN T X HAVE remarked at various times, on the practical impossibility of getting anything less important than an epic across the screen of the Oriental theatre, Chicago, without a laugh. Perhaps I have given the impression that there was something regrettable about this condition. If so blame my choice of words, for the essentially young and intellectually honest Oriental audience is the last word in accuracy. Any actor, director or producer who has not watched a picture with an Oriental audience has an experience in store for him; it will make him a better actor, director or producer. These young people, the youngest audience in the world, really felt quite badly about the extreme difficulties into which exigencies of “The Woman on Trial” precipitated Pola Negri. They were intensely sorry that her sweetheart’s illness forced her to marry a millionaire who turned out to be a bad boy, and they thought it reprehensible of her lifelong friend to frame her for a divorce action. They were practically prostrated when it became clear that her child would be taken from her, merely because she had killed the deceitful lifelong friend, and they weren’t at all sure that things would come out all right in the end. But they couldn’t — just simply could not — refrain from hearty guffaws when closeups of the kindly old judge on the bench (who had urged the accused to tell her story) were flashed like so many Red Cross Christmas seals in their order of their appearance. “Santa Claus,” murmured a steno in the thirty-fifth row, and Sennett would retire completely and happily if anything of his could get the laugh that followed. After this, of course, the folks couldn’t get down to the serious side of “The Woman on Trial.” But that isn’t all. These folks are not rowdies. The picture came to an end, as all good or bad pictures do, and the folks gave it a big hand, a hand that said “Sorry, old thing, but you’re just too funny* No offense, and we know you’re all right.” It isn’t within my somewhat farflung ego to attempt improvement upon their dictum.