The Film Daily (1918)

18 jM^ DAILY Sunday, November 17, 1918 Handling and Atmosphere Lift Ancient and Slow-Moving Story Pauline Frederick in "A DAUGHTER OF THE OLD SOUTH" Paramount DIRECTOR Emile Chautard AUTHORS Alicia Ramsey and Rudolph de Cordova SCENARIO BY . Margaret Turnbull CAMERAMAN Jacques Bizuel AS A WHOLE Pleasing atmosphere and handling lift ancient plot but fail to make it interesting. STORY Shero leaves old lover for city guy and returns to old lover for clutch. Formula 57. DIRECTION Provided very good atmosphere and handled little detail touches effectively but couldn't make slender plot interesting and let some things happen very obligingly. PHOTOGRAPHY Generally very fine LIGHTINGS Soft, even effects were pleasing CAMERA WORK Very good STAR Emoted satisfactory and her followers will probably like her in role. SUPPORT Satisfactory EXTERIORS Very fine; provided convincing and pleasing atmosphere. INTERIORS Excellent; detail nicely handled DETAIL Some bad spots in story CHARACTER OF STORY Inoffensive LENGTH OF PRODUCTION About 4,800 feet ALTHOUGH this is terribly draggy and fails to really stir anything as drammer, it has been given a very good production as to atmosphere and settings and for that reason will probably slide by satisfactory as a program offering in communities where Miss Frederick has a following. The story is the old stuff of the daughter having a husband picked out for her by her grandmother. She can't see the arrangement as mapped out and when a young author comes to the town and takes up a residence near her, he sees in her an inspiration for a novel he is writing and Shero falls in love with him. About the time the romance is progressing nicely, the author's former sweetheart blows in and he turns Pauline down flat, becoming engaged to his old girl again. Pauline has a scheme and tells the dame that if she will come to the cottage that night she will show up the aauthor in his true colors. That night, as arranged, the dame is stationed in the next room and she sees the author come in and kiss Pauline. Then Shero pours poison in his wine, showing him the vial after he has emptied it. He pleads for his life and she consents to save him providing he will agree to marry her. He consents, after which she tells him that she had not given him poison, being merely a ruse to show him in his true colors, the dame rushes in and denounces him and Pauline rushes to the river to drown herself. Pedro, the lover whom she had turned down, sees her in time to save her and they pull the clutch. One sequence that kicked an awful hole in this was the utterly unconvincing development of the action in the cottage where Pauline planned the ruse to show the author up to the dame. He had previously turned Pauline down flat — Boy, I claim it was some turndown, the way they had him pass her up on the street after the dame arrived — but still when Pauline had planted the dame in another room in the cottage they had the author come right in and kiss her just like nothing had happened. Nobody is going to figure how she had this planned out to work so smoothly. Although Rex McDougall, as the author, was very satisfactory as an actor, he didn't seem to fit the role of a lady-killer who would have all the women on his side so easily. He wasn't the romantic, hevamp type. The settings and atmosphere lifted this decidedly and Director Chautard handled the individual incidents very effectively except for the unexplained meeting in the cottage just mentioned, which certainly failed to get over as convincing or within reason. Others in the cast were Pedro de Cordoba, Vera Beresford, Mrs. T. Randolph, Myra Brooks, and J. P. Laffney. Not Big But Will Probably Get Over With Star's Followers The Box Office Analysis for the Exhibitor The success of this depends entirely upon the drawing power of Pauline Frederick in your town. The story certainly isn't going to create any stir or cause folks to tell their friends to come in and see this and while the followers of the star may be satisfied with her performance in the offering, those who see her for the first time in this production aren't liable to rave about her work on account of the general lack of interest and suspense in the offering as a whole. In looking over the Paramount press book on this production for the cast and other data, I notice that they have supplied a press review, "to be sent to the newspapers immediately after the first showing." Don't do it! This review tells the whole story and I don't have to tell you that that is all wrong. It is all right to run a synopsis which gives them just enough to make them want to come in and see what the finish is going to be, but to spill the beans entirely as to how the story ends is unquestionably bad business. Also, as is frequently the case, the synopsis ending does not agree with the one in the production, the director having decided to snuff Shero off via the aqua route rather than the dagger after the press matter had been prepared. In advertising this you might say : "Would you prefer to pick your own husband or would you let someone else do the picking? Pauline Frederick thought she knew whom she wanted to marry but one unsuccessful love affair proved that someone else knew best after all. See 'A Daughter of the Old South'."