The Film Daily (1918)

18 n)i<ftfcn57 Sunday, July 14, 1918 Appealing Star is Great Help to Wandering Story With Trick Finish Madge Kennedy in "THE SERVICE STAR" Goldwyn DIRECTOR Charles Miller AUTHOR Charles A. Logue CAMERAMEN. . . .Louis Dunmyre and Ned Van Buren AS A WHOLE Appealing, pleasing star carries wandering plot up to surprise finish with pa= triotic titles helping somewhat. STORY Very slender thread with too much emphasis on one point which tires you before final trick twist. DIRECTION Rather good except for undue repetition of guying Miss Kennedy. PHOTOGRAPHY Quite satisfactory. Varied from fine to fair. LIGHTINGS Some very good but occasionally too contrasty. CAMERA WORK. Varied STAR Appealing and held sympathy SUPPORT Just good. Jules Cowles and Tammany Young made bits stand out. INTERIORS Satisfactory EXTERIORS Good, a few splendid shots DETAIL Acceptable CHARACTER OF STORY Has patriotic angles LENGTH OF PRODUCTION About 5,000 feet YOU feel very sorry for Madge Kennedy right off the bat in this and the offering gets away to a very likable start. Unfortunately, however, too much attention is given to this one appealing character without sufficient variety to the uncalled for and persistent guying by most everyone who comes in contact with her. There were a good many "Give me your kind applause" patriotic titles injected into the first reel or two and since it was hard to figure where this was all headed until you finally landed on the trick finish. I am afraid that the average audience will become rather tired with it all before the time comes to attempt to bring them out of their trance. Miss Kennedy is very likable and makes the most of an almost impossible character. She is supposed to be an unloved, homely little orphan who is guyed by everyone because she has no sweetheart in the army. If one or two people had taken this attitude, it wouldn't have been so bad but it seemed that everyone in town was picking on Madge with this one thought in mind and when she ran away and went to Washington to help in the war offices, she bunked into the same sort of guying from all the other girls in the office. Possibly the author felt it was necessary to emphasize this teasing in order to make the rather impossible thing which Madge did next seem at least probable. We found our little star declaring before all the girls that she was the wife of an aviator who was doing wonderful things in France. She even bought from a pawn keeper a lot of war souvenirs to prove that she had such a sweetheart. This resulted in the aviator's mother being summoned and to everyone's surprise she met the supposed wife calmly and said she knew all about it from a letter from her son. Madge couldn't exactly understand this but did go to the lady's house where she met a young chemist who was working on a poisonous gas for the Government. The little tough who had sold Madge the souvenirs and also a wedding ring saw her picture in the papers and stepped around to collect a little blackmail. This part was well played by Tammany Young who made his bit stand out. as did Jules Cowles who played the small part of a colored servant. After some little mixup, we finally discovered that the chemist was in reality the man who was supposed to be making good as an aviator in France and that his mother had sent another man in France because the boy was afraid of firearms. In a little battle with tough Tammany, our hero got over his firearm scare and agreed to go and enlist. Since it had already been established that he had fallen in love with our little star who was supposed to be his wife, this ended the chapter. In order to arrive fit this trick climax, it was necessary to run blind quite a lot and I am afraid that the balance has not been kept well enough to have this register as a really pleasing bit of entertainment. By the time you get to the trick finish you don't care much what becomes of things. In the supporting est were Clarence Oliver. Maude Turner Cordon. Mabel Ballin. William Bechtel and Zula Ellsworth. Star and Patriotic Appeal Will Get This Over But Is Not Big The Box Office Analysis for the Exhibitor For those who like Madge Kennedy and there sure are a lot of such, I believe her personality will carry this. The story is rather a weak sister but the trick finish will give your folks enough to talk about as they leave that they will probably forget to make any complaint. You can hardly figure that any of them will rave about this but certainly they won't kick. There are some patriotic punches and many of these would have been much more effec ive had they not slipped in so many of the "please come through with a cheer" captions. There are a few spots where the star really hits quite a bit of pathos but I would not say much about the actual value of this as a drama. It would be much more advisable to devote all of your space to the patriotic appeal and concentrate upon the star and the fact that she portrays the part of a little girl who got into an awful mixup because she just had to have a sweetheart in France so that she could wear a service star. You might head an ad: "What woidd you do to get a sweetheart in France? See what Madge Kennedy does in 'The Service Star' ". Other catch lines would be: "Do you yearn for a soldier sweetheart?" "What have you done for your country?"