Film Spectator (1927-1928)

THE FILM SPECTATOR Page Twelve be impractical. To be one hundred per cent, funny a scene must be based on a funny idea that is plausible. If machinery be used in a comedy scene it has no value unless it acts like a machine and not like a comedian. The elevator could not have acted as it is made to do in this picture, therefore I could not see anything funny in incidents based on the theory that it could. I do not hold Bill Seiter responsible for the lack of entertainment in Out All Night. His flair for handling farce and light comedy is established as a fact, and when he is given anything clever to work with he can turn out a picture bubbling over with mirth. This time apparently he was handed an impossible script and had to call in some gag men to jazz the thing up. Almost everything we have tired of in two-reel comedies has a place in this feature picture. Only the presence of Marian Nixon in the cast saved the picture as far as I was concerned. She is an engaging youngster. Of course, Denny is all right. He is a really good comedian, but he has little chance in this picture. There should be more downright cleverness in a farce than in any other kind of picture. It is a minus quality in Out All Night, as it generally is in anything that’s been out all night. * ♦ ♦ “Heart of Salome” Is Well Produced That scores of close-ups are not necessary in a picture is demonstrated by Victor Schertzinger in The Heart of Salome. Fox has given the picture a beautiful setting and the director retains all the beauty of the scenes by not continually blotting out the backgrounds with Brobdingnagian reproductions of the features of his leading characters. There is one striking love scene between Alma Rubens and Walter Pidgeon that is shown almost entirely in a very long shot, the features of the players being indistinguishable in the distance, but all the value of the scene being established by the relation of the two to one another. He cuts to a medium shot at the end of the sequence, and does not commit the common crime of showing any part of the love scene in individual close-ups. Every reel of The Heart of Salome is a feast for the eyes. The exterior shots are particularly effective. We are used to interiors that strive to be artistic and sometimes achieve it, but we are not always as fortunate in the exteriors presented to us. The beauty of the outdoor shots in this picture is emphasized by the fine camera work of Glen McWilliams. At times, however, the lighting is more beautiful than reasonable. One scene does not lose its bewitching moonlight attractiveness even when -------- — — JOSEPH JACKSON’S Original Story “ON TO RENO” has been selected by JAMES CRUZE for his first picture for P. D. C. GRanite 7881 Free Lancing August 6, 1927 the moon sets; and before the moon slips beneath the horizon it manages to shed its rays on the sides of the characters farthest from it. No lighting is effective unless * its origin be established by shadows as reasonable. A moon can not shine on a man’s face and on his back at the same time, and when it sets it does not continue to shine on anything. The elaborate pains which the Fox technical men went to to show the moon setting would ^ have achieved more in the way of realism if a change in the lighting of the scene had supported the moon’s action. But on the whole The Heart of Salome is a delightful picture, splendidly directed by Schertzinger, and well acted by Miss Rubens, Walter Pidgeon and Holmes Herbert. It is a melodramatic story that contains nothing particularly new, although it is free from the threadworn conventionalities in its treatment. An example of this was a scene showing Alma receiving a telegram. The telegram is not flashed on the screen. We are pretty sure it is from Herbert, a master crook whose accomplice she is, and we And out that such is the case two scenes later when we see her with Herbert and when she refers to the message. What Herbert wrote in his telegram to call her back to Paris was of no importance; the fact of her return was the only thing that mattered. In a Universal preview which followed this feature picture a clause in a contract is flashed four times, although once would have been enough. The difference between the two pictures was that the one produced by Fox gave the audience credit for having some intelligence, while that from the Universal studio assumed that the memory of the audience could not stretch beyond a few hundred feet of film. The., picture that makes the greatest impression is the one that leaves most to the intelligence of the viewer, something that producers do not seem to be able to grasp. Alma Rubens’s photographic possibilities are realized fully in The Heart of Salome, but do not outshine her acting EDWARD CLARK Dramatist-Scenarist “De Luxe Anne” . Joseph M. Schenck "Private Izzy Murphy” . Warner Bros. “Ladies’ Night” .... Edward Small “Sally in Our Alley” . . . Columbia AT PRESENT WITH UNIVERSAL ^aiuiniiiuniiiiiiiiiintiiiiiiiiiiiiiaiiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiminimiiiiiiiiHiiiMiiiiiiiHiiiiimiiiiciimiiiniiiHU^ I For Waterless | I Healthful Cooking | I USE I “Wagner Ware” 3 Sold in Hollywood s by the I CENTRAL HARDWARE CO. |. = 6673 Hollywood Blvd. 5 S;aiiiiiiiiiiii[]iiiiiiiiiiiiuiiiiiiiiiiiic]iiiiiiiiiiiiuiiimiiiiiiniitiiiiiiiiiaimiiiiiiiiDiiiiiiiiiiioiiiiiiuiut*>