The Film Daily (1918)

Saturday, July 20, 1918 Sure-Fire Comedy With Great Cast and Funny Complications Wallace Reid in "LESS THAN KIN" Paramount DIRECTOR : Donald Crisp AUTHOR Alice Duer Miller SCENARIO BY. . . * Marion Fairfax CAMERAMAN Henry Kotani ART DIRECTOR Wilfred Buckland AS A WHOLE Pleasing cast, delightful comedy and amusing complications make this a surefire winner anywhere. STORY Amusing complications evolving around hero who impersonates dead man to dodge his own past. DIRECTION Provided good atmosphere and made it snappy all the way. PHOTOGRAPHY Artistic. Doubles well timed and dissolves excellent. LIGHTINGS Generally very fine CAMERA WORK Very good STAR Great SUPPORT . . . . . . . . . .*. . . . . . . . . . . . .Generally excellent EXTERIORS Very good but sub=station set could have been more convincing. INTERIORS Very good except bank interior looking: out on street which registered very "setty". DETAIL Manv good touches; some sure=fire titles CHARACTER OF STORY Comedy=drama for any audience; is sure=fire. LENGTH OF PRODUCTION About 4,500 feet THEY'VE given Wally a story that was evidently made-to-order for him in this and he sure puts it over with a bang. We had some great titles to help this along and the many unexpected twists make it travel on high all the way. Wally is a young American in Honduras who is wanted for murder in New York, he having too strenuously broker up a wife-beating battle with the result that the husband was killed. The wife loved her husband even if he was ruff and testified against Wally with the result that he was sentenced for life, but the warden had carelessly left the "cage" open so his good looking jail-bird could beat it. In Honduras he meets a man who is his exact double" also a Xew Yorker, and when this feller conveniently dies and leaves his identification papers, Wally, who longs for the bright lights, decides to go back to New York and assume the dead man's place and station. The dead man's father, not having seen his son for twelve years, swallows W ally's story and after he meets an adopted cousin. Anna Little, he is just beginning to be glad he came when things start to happen. The dead man had been an absconder and had left many debts behind him which responsibility Wally has to shoulder but the final blow comes when the dead man's wife and kids, having seen Wally's picture in the papers, hunt him up and call him "Paw." Wally insists that he has never seen the woman before but when she produces the marriage license made out in the name of the dead man Wally is impersonating, he finds himself in a jam. This makes him decide to take a chance on his own past and he tells Anna that he. is not the dead man but his double. Lewis Tickers. At this juncture a former cell-mate of Wally's turns up and identifies him as the escaped murderer. Wally finds himself between fires — if he is Tickers, the chair awaits him and if he is Lee, he has an awftrt looking wife and two ruff-neck kids on his hands. Wally is locked in a room while his rival for Anna. Raymond Hatton. stayson guard outside the door waiting for the sheriff to arrive. Wally escapes, and appropriating a car, beats it for the Canadian border. After he has gone a ways, he finds that Anna is in the tonneau. having hidden under some robes and they beat it to a convenient church and get married just as the sheriff and banker arrive. The banker has learned that the wife of the man Wally had murdered had retracted her evidence so Wally is free and we have the clutch. We had some very good detail bits throughout the offering but the sub-station set would have fooled anybody if they had dirtied it up a bit and smeared some posters over it. As it is. it's too clean and gets over as a "set". A little more attention to detail here would have gotten this by as a sure-enuf shot of a New York street corner. Of course, this was made in Los Angeles, where everything (pertaining to transportation) is on the level. The very capable cast included Tim Cruze. Gustav Seffertitz. Noah Beerv. Tames Neil. Charles Ogle. Jane Wolff. Guv Oliver. Calvert Carter and J. Herbert. Your Folks Will Rave About Wally in This. Boost It To the Limit The Box Office Analysis for the Exhibitor You can make a lot of noise about this and I think that most folks, especially the ladies who think Wally is "jest grand", will think that this is one of the best offerings they have ever seen him in. Miss Little has also built up quite an individual following in Wally's support and I would use her name prominently. I would make it plain that this is delightful, wholesome comedy-drama with unusual twists and complications and would go the limit in boosting it. It sure is a genuine pleasure to sit through a production that has been handled the way this one has and you won't go wrong in making considerable fuss about it. You might use some catchlines like this to stir up interest: "What would you do if you were impersonating another man to dodge your own past and found that his record was worse than yours?" "Wally Reid had a criminal record and assumed the name and station of another man to dodge it. Then it developed that he has thus fallen heir to the other man's abondoned family. If he revealed his identity the chair awaited him — if he stood firm as the other man, he had an awful looking wiff and two ruff-neck kids on his hands. Then there was a very good looking young lady to be considered. See how Wally got out of predicament in 'Loss Than Kin.' " You might ask them: "Have you got a double?! Does it cause you embarrassment? Wally had -*t| lot of bad debts and a dirty faced family wished on hinj when he assumed another man's name to dodge his own : past." See "Less Than Kin."