Exhibitor's Trade Review (Aug-Nov 1925)

26 Exhibitors Trade Review SCANDAL STREET Arrow Pictures Corporation Photoplay. Adapted from the story by Frank R. Adams. Director, Whitman Bennett. Length, 6,750 feel. CAST AND SYNOPSIS Sheila Kane Madge Kennedy NeilKeeley I Ni] Welch Harrison Hallidayj NUes welch Howard Manning Edwin August Julian Lewis Coit Albertson Cora Forman Louise Carter Pat O'Malley J Moy Bennett Neil Keeley, picture star and husband of Sheila, is killed in a motor accident in company with the notorious Cora Forman. Halliday, a double for Keeley, takes his place. The public is kept ignorant of Keeley's death. To make the imposition realistic Halliday lives at Keeley's home as Sheila's guest. They fall in love with one another. Cora sees a chance for blackmail and consults Julian Lewis, an unscrupulous lawyer. To save Sheila, Halliday spends much time with Sheila. Halliday plans another auto accident in which both he and Cora will be killed. Fate thwarts the plan. Sheila and O'Malley, the picture producer, drive up. All is explained to Sheila. Happy ending. By Herb Cruikshank T'HE fans should certainly like this one. It has to do entirely with the lives of motion picture actors, directors and producers. There are intimate shots of picture production in the studio. Long shots, mediums, close-ups, reverses, and so on are shown and explained. The troubles of stars, directors and producers are graphically portrayed. There is a nice love story interwoven. The story is plausible. It builds well to a climax that precedes the happy ending so much in demand. There is plenty of suspense. The most interesting shots are those showing the production of a film in the studio. Several sequences are enacted. The director does his stuff. The stars do theirs. It looks like the real thing. Niles Welch enacts a dual role. First he is the actor whose head is turned by feminine adulation and a too extensive acquaintance with the cup that cheers. Later he is the hard working Halliday, living image of the dead star. In this part it is shown that he is forced to act a role even in private life. Here is an interesting situation. He is in love with Sheila, and portraying the role of her husband, he must needs pretend to be the dissolute Keeley. Mr. Welch does well in both parts. Madge Kennedy is the heroine and makes the most of her part. She is especially effective in the sequences where she is called upon to register jealousy of Halliday and Cora. The remainder of the cast is excellent. Each of them renders a fine character portrayal. Exploit this as a picture of studio life and the activities of the motion picture business from the inside. Stress the point that pictures are shown in the making. Play up the cast and Niles Welch in a dual role. WHY WOMEN LOVE First National Photoplay. Adapted from Willard Robertsons play, "The Sea Woman." Scenario, Lois Leeson. Director, Edwin Carewe. Length, 6,696 feet. CAST AND SYNOPSIS Molla Hansen Blanche Sweet Olaf Hansen Bert Sprotte Rod O'Malley Robert Frazer Josiah Scott Charles Murray Silas Martin RusseU Simpson Pearl Dorothy Sebastian John Hickey Fred Warren Ira Meers Edward Earle Olaf Hansen's ship is lost. His daughter is saved by a lighthouse keeper. Her lover Rod misses her letters and is absent two years on a cruise. Molla promises Martin, the lighthouse man to protect Pearl, his daughter who is inclined to be wayward. The girl falls In love with a rumrunner. Later Molla is told of Pearl s condition by a physician. Pean blames the innocent Meers. Molla shoots him. Pearl discovers that the rum-runner has married. She gets him in the lighthouse tower, floods it with gas and hurls a lantern in. An explosion follows. Pearl and the man die. Ira recovers. Rod returns and weds Molla. By Herb Cruikshank gATISFACTORY entertainment with special appeal for communities where they like the "lighthouse-by-the-sea" type of story. In such spots it should pull extra well. There are a number of good touches to the credit of director Carewe. One of these is a genuine thriller. It pictures the sea ablaze. An oil tanker is ignited by a carelessly thrown cigarette. The fire reaches the hold. There is a tremendous explosion. The ocean is changed into a writhing hell of flame. Through this the heroine and the rescuing lighthouse keeper fight their way to shore. Later there is a shot showing the lighthouse a roaring inferno from an explosion of gas. The tower totters and falls in a fashion to make any audience sit up and take notice. I think a better ending would have been supplied by causing Ira, the innocent engineer, to finally win the love of the erring Pearl and, forgiving, marry her. As it is, the girl is consumed in the fire with her faithless lover, rum-running Johnnv. There are some beautiful scenic shots showing the sea, the lighthouse and the surf sprayed rocks. Blanche Sweet is just that in a role that is robbed of its sympathy by the greater interest aroused in the doings of Pearl. The latter part is ably enacted by Dorothy Sebastian. This talented girl renders a fine portrayal of a headstrong girl, misunderstood, and in turn not knowing just what it is all about. The cast is up to requirements with special praise for the comedy work of Charley Murray as a bald seaman. The title hasn't anything to do with the picture. Yet it may have exploitation value. The names in the cast will pull. Stress the sea stuff and use the lighthouse idea for bally and lobby display. THE BASHFUL BUCCANEER Rayart Pictures Corporation Photoplay. Story and Continuity, Kraig Johnson and Bur^e Jenkins. Director, Harry J. Brown. Length, five reels. CAST AND SYNOPSIS Nancy Lee Dorothy Dwan Jerry Logan Reed Howes First Mate Sheldon Lewis Second Mate Bull Montana Cook Jimmie Aubrey Captain Sam Allen Clipper Jones George French Jack Sailor Sharkey Jerry, a writer of sea stories who has never seen the sea, reci'ves a big check for (/lie of his advmun; tales. He determines (o really go to sie seeking material for more yarns. Two mariners working for the orphaned Nancy wish to lift the libel on her boat for debts. They are readers of Jerry's books. Not knowing the hero, they frame a story of buried treasure culled from his own writings. He buys the boat, engages a roughneck crew and sets sail for treasure existing only in the minds of the mariners. The crew really mutinies. After many thrilling adventures all hands land at a point mentioned in one of Jerry's stories. Here they encounter a motion picture company filming an adaptation. Everything is explained. Jerry marries Nancy and returns to Waterloo, Iowa, to write more sea tales. By Herb Cruikshank GjHOULD receive an enthusiastic welcome at the box-office. It is Reed Howes' best to date. A live tip for exhibitors catering to an average picture-going public. The story has to do with hidden treasure — pirates — mutiny. It is a "Treasure Island" story, touched with the light hand of comedy. The picture is amusing, diverting, entertaining. Yet there is an abundance of thrills. It abounds in attentionholding action. There is a surprise twist at the end that will send them out hoping for more pictures like it. Nancy Lee is possessor of a stately schooner which is plastered with mortgages like an old homestead. Along comes Howes with a bag of money and a longing for salt air. Before he knows it the cash is gone and he is roving the main with a villainous crew at his command. There is no treasure — but he doesn't know that. Neither does the crew. They mutiny. He gets excitement enough for a series of Alger books. The final kick comes when he battles the pirates ashore, and seriously interferes with a picture company engaged in producing a film version of his best seller. Howes outdoes himself in the leading role. Dorothy Dwan is a delightful heroine. There are athletic stunts galore. Lots of comedy, too. Some of it supplied by Jimmy Aubrey as the cook. Those eminent actors, Bull Montana and Sailor Sharkey, help to make the atmosphere of villainy realistic. Other gentlemen with squashed noses and vegetable ears aid in making the crew appear piratical. Exploit this as Reed Howes' best so far. Feature the hidden treasure idea. Stage a treasure hunt — the treasure being passes. Use throwaways of maps pointing the way to the treasure — at your theatre.