The Film Daily (1918)

Sunday, August 25. 1918 AILV 13 Exciting, Well Played Fire Meller; Rather Poorly Assembled Tom Santschi in "THE STILL ALARM" Selig-Pioneer F. F. Corp'n — State Rights DIRECTOR Colin Campbell AUTHOR Joseph Arthur SCENARIO BY Colin Campbell CAMERAMAN Harry Neumann AS A WHOLE Screen version of famous stage meller has good and bad spots but will satisfy generally. STORY Usual meller incidents with most of spectacular action centered around various fires in production. DIRECTION Individual scenes well done but production poorly edited and lacks finish. PHOTOGRAPHY Just good straight stuff; general effect was marred considerably by many stock flashes and duped scenes of fire stuff. LIGHTINGS Adequate with a few effective bits, but generally too uniform. CAMERA WORK Satisfactory STAR Virile, appealing hero; made role convincing and real. SUPPORT Bessie Eyton pleasing; Frank Clark gave excellent characterization; others balanced nicely. EXTERIORS Satisfactory except Los Angeles scenes didn't match with N. Y. stock flashes of fire stuff. INTERIORS Acceptable; real interiors marred by lighting. DETAIL Several bad spots in editing and lack of opening titles jarred. Gruesome close-up of dead fire-victims should be cut. CHARACTER OF STORY For any audience LENGTH OF PRODUCTION About 6,ooo feet I CAN'T quite figure what has happened to this production as it was shown in New York this week, but it is very evident that it has been tampered with and whoever is responsible for its present condition should be spanked. Without any of the preliminary titles that usually accompany feature productions, they start this out with a very poorly done main title, wherein an attempt at a fire effect has all but obscured the caption, which is all that we get. From here we jump right in to the first subtitle with no clew as to who directed the production or the identity of many prominent members of the cast. This is going to create the impression with many that something is missing; it looks decidedly unfinished. The story opens with a prelude that we didn't get in the play, explaining the poisoning of the man which later implicates Shero's father, as well as the mysterious disappearance of Shero's sister. The main action starts when Shero meets Hero Tom Santchi, a fireman, after he has made a daring rescue in her father's factory. They become friends and the romance starts. Willun turns up and through a paper implicating Shero's father, obtains consent to marry her and installs himself in Shero's home. The old drunkard-druggist who had once worked for Shero's father and who possesses the necessary evidence to free him from the false poisoning charge, happens to meet hero, which leads up to the clearing of the father and arrest of willun. the real murderer. It happens that the old man had kidnapped Shero's sister, whom he had raised as his daughter and the family are happily united after a spectacular fight between willun and Hero, following willun's cutting the fire alarm wires so the department could not be warned and setting fire to the house. "The Still Alarm." given over the phone, brings out the entire department and the old druggist is rescued from the room where willun had left him. They finished with a fireman's wedding, showing Hero and Shero coming down the street at night on the engine. These scenes were quite effective. The use of many duped ashes of news weekly fire stuff throughout the offering jarred considerably and in two instances even the staged runs were duped. Just to show you that they didn't care how this was put together, we had the same run twice in the offering, one of them being a dupe made from the other. Those credited in the cast were Tom Santchi, Bessie Eyton, Eugenie Besserer and Fritzi Brunette. The man who played the willun was good although he didn't change his appearance for the time lapse. Shero's father played effectively and William Scott made a small bit stand out. I think it was Frank Clark who played "Doc" Wilbur and certainly his work should have been credited. He gave an excellent characterization. No raise in Advertising rate for WID'S YEAR BOOK. Send Copy Early.