The Film Renter and Moving Picture News (May-Jun 1923)

46 THE: FILM RENTER: & MOVING PICTURE NEWS. Scene From ‘t Tue Pmerm.”’ _The Pilgrim. .. Chaplin’s latest comedy, a fascinating bit of screen fun that will keep any audience in ‘roars of laughter. RELEASED BY PEARL FILMS. Length, 3,700 feet. Release Date, August 27, 1923. YT is in many ways a maturer Chaplin which we see in ‘‘ The Pilgrim,’’ the Chaplin picture which Mr. Tom Davies brought back from America for Pearl Films, and the comedy has’ a delightful, artistic finish which reveals how far the comedian has travelled since the days, say, of ‘' Tillie’s Punctured Romance.’’ The huge gathering at the Kingsway Opera House last Friday saw a comedy that kept them in roars of laughter by its clever and humorous development of a single circumstance into a queer situation or series of situations, and; moreover, the effect was gained without the slightest resort to slapstick farce. It was a picture upon which has been spent not only careful thought, but diligent rehearsal: if this had not been so, the ‘smootliness with which many of the scenes were acted would have lacked that care-freeness which characterised them. Of course, it was the same cld Chaplin in spite of the fact that the funny little swagger stick and the queer hat were not in evidence, but it was a Chaplin relying on other effects and principally upon himself. Only once did we see that funny turn upon gne foot with the other leg horizontal; the rest of the fun June 30, 1923. Review of Ne ‘ All About Thy was gained by some clever miming in logically developed situations. The picture opens with a bather coming out from the stream to find his own clothes gone and a convict’s garb left in their ‘stead. Charlie, just escaped from prison, is the culprit, as is easily realised when in the next scene he is discovered walking up and down the railway platform in the black clothes and flat hat of a parson. His nervousness is excellently simulated, and when the eloping couple approach him that he may marry them the fun begins in real earnest. He bolts, and having successfully dodged bridegroom, irate father-in-law and police, he pricks blindly on the list of stations and finds himself later! in Devil's _Gluch on a Sunday morning when the chapel congregation is waiting’ for its new minister. Charlie accepts the position as a godsend, and into this section is packed some: really tip-top comedy. His sermon on David and Goliath is not only funny but a real masterpiece of story-telling in mime. It is done, too, in a manner that should not offend the susceptibilities of any but the most rigid and unbending Plymouth Brother. The gathering at the trade show enjoyed this scene immensely, as the roars of laughter witnessed to. Thereafter it is a chapter of misadventures of many kinds, and the humour of the minister's efforts to cut’ tbe pudding covered with sauce, which turns out to be @ round hat which a child has put over the pudding, beats all the stories of tough Christmas gcese that were ever invented. The introduction of a former fellow-lag to his hostess as an old college chum lets him in for more trouble, and there is again a skilful and finished bit of acting in the way he rescues the deacon’s stolen pocket-book by pretending to perform a conjuring trick. So situation follows situation until the end, when, having been arrested and taken 4o the border, he finds the other side of it has its perils no less than the hither side where he may be rearrested. This is again another well-planned: ind delightfully acted scene. One important point which must not miss emphasis is the way in which the story gets smoothly and clearly told with but little resort to the sub-title. Even in the sermon scene it is taken STEWART ROME HAS LEAD IN NEW ASTRA NATIONAL PICTURE. Scenes from the new Astra National production “ ‘The Woman who ‘Obeyed, ** recently comnpléted by Sidney Morgan, Rome, Hilda Bayley and Peter Dear appear in this picture of domestic life. Stewart