Film Spectator (1927-1928)

THE FILM SPECTATOR Page Ten “Mata-Hari” Is Notable Picture ONCE the Germans get into the habit of putting into all their pictures as much real screen talent as is displayed in Mata-Hari they are going to do one of two things: they are going to capture the film markets of the world, or they are going to force Americans to make better pictures. Mata-Hari is an intellectual treat. It is notable for its near-perfection in every feature that a picture contains — story-telling, acting, direction, lighting, photography, and sets. The story is told with neatness and dispatch. It slows up only when by doing so it becomes more impressive, and it travels along swiftly when it should. The action is carried along by dissolves from one sequence to another. We see Magda Sonja, in her dancing costume, bowing from the stage to the audience which stands and applauds her with up-stretched hands. We do not lose sight of the clapping hands as they change to those of people standing outside the stage door through which she comes, dressed for the street. It is an effective way of bridging an interval without any lost motion. Miss Sonja’s performance is a remarkable one. She reveals that she had a deep understanding of the part. The suffering of her lover drives her to distraction, but when she herself is sentenced to death she takes it without a quiver of an eye-lash, just what we might expect from a notorious spy who knew at all times that death was but one of the hazards of the game she played. Fritz Kortner gives a magnificent performance. He puts his part over almost entirely with his eyes, relying but slightly on facial expression. Seldom has it been my good fortune to see a picture so superbly directed. It contains almost everything that The Spectator has argued should be in pictures. The star is sentenced to death and she has her back to the camera when she registers her reaction to it. Fancy that! All we see is her head going up, her chin raising. The director was not afraid to shoot the backs of all his characters. His grouping is at all times effective, but not in one scene is it obvious that it is done with the position of the camera in mind. We do not see a character walking into a scene and turning to face the camera, an infantile trick which so many of our directors perform. In Mata-Hari all the points are not registered by close-ups of faces. Both in long shots and in medium shots the bodies of the actors are allowed to play their parts in scenes, one of the things I have urged so often. One very effective shot shows nothing but the backs of the two characters in it, and it is the index finger of one of them that puts the scene over. There is a reason for each such scene. In this one a character is seated facing a wall and the other leans over his shoulder. Anyone in the room could see only their backs, hence the director shoots it that way. An American director would have torn out the wall and shot close-ups of the men’s faces, despite the fact that such a view of them was not possible to anyone. The man who plays opposite the star appears in the picture in a night exterior, wrapped in a big fur coat. We do not discover who he is until near the end of the sequence, when he enters his house and takes off the coat. By our American method of introducing our leading characters he would have paused long enough in his task of rescuing the lady to be shot in a close-up while he gazed at the moon. Mata-Hari is free from every movie trick August 6, 1927 that we work to death. In importing this picture Walter Kofeldt has done a distinct service to Hollywood. The only thing in it that does not reveal the highest intelli-* gence is the only thing in it that Hollywood contributed, the punctuation of the titles. It was so bad that one would have thought that the picture was made here if the rest of it had not been so good. « * « “World at Her Feet” An Entertaining Thing Quite an entertaining little picture is The World at Her Feet, starring Florence Vidor and directed by Luther Reed. Reed has demonstrated before that he is at home with a picture of this sort, and its faults are more faults of the script than of the direction. Miss Vidor neglects her husband, Arnold Kent, to pursue her career as a lawyer, and his discontent with the life he is forced to lead is built up logically and convincingly. The star’s characterization is consistent. She is shown as being expert in her law practice at handling other people’s troubles, and when she has domestic troubles of her own she is equally as capable in handling them. She gives a good performance and I like her in it better than I have in anjd;hing since The Grand Duchess and the Waiter. But the acting honors in The World go to Richard Tucker and, William Austin. Tucker, whom I always have seen previously in serious roles, has comedy opportunities in this picture and avails himself of them quite “delightfully. Austin’s growing popularity as a comedian was shown when the audience of which I was a member began to. laugh as soon as he appeared on the screen and before he had done anything to provoke it. He is alone on the screen as a damn fool Englishman and never fails to make an impression. I never saw Kent before. He has an easy way about him that is pleasing, and is a happy choice to play opposite Miss Vidor. When a picture has as much cleverness in it as there is in this one it makes me wonder why it does not go all the way in that direction and be free from the little faults that detract from it. David Torrence, a fine actor who had almost everything but his presence cut out of the picture, is shown as the head of the legal staff of a railroad. He persuades Miss Vidor to join his staff, thereby establishing the fact that she is a corporation lawyer. Later the whole story turns on the fact that she is consulted on divorce cases, which corporation lawyers never handle. It was not necessary to show Torrence as attorney for a railroad company. The divorce angle could have been planted by having him ask Miss Vidor to join his law firm to handle the divorce cases that came to it. Kent inherits a fortune and promptly quits work, a poor thing for a hero to do. Although he is tremendously rich and his wife’s practice has grown to great volume, she asks him to exchange a bracelet he bought her for a set of law books. It is ridiculous and was done only for the convenience of the story, as the bracelet had to crop up later in the possession of Margaret Quimby, who fills a small part quite acceptably. There’ were plenty of ways of getting the bracelet back to Kent without dragging in the law books, which Miss Vidor was able to buy on her own account. Tucker calls on Florence at her home to consult her about getting a divorce, and although a title strains itself to make the action seem' reasonable it fails of its purpose, for such a thing simply