The Film Spectator (Mar-Dec 1928)

Page Ten THE FILM SPECTATOR March 3, 1928 such shots. They are ridiculous, as well bred people do their kissing with more privacy. No doubt the Midnight Madness script called for the action, but Weight takes the curse off it by making both characters look silly and confused after the deed has been committed. Most directors shoot it in a matter-of-fact way, as if a restaurant were run as much for making love as for serving soup. In handling his characters the director shows a marked sense of dramatic values. The three leading characters give adequate and intelligent performances. Brook is particularly good. He is one of the most accomplished actors we have, and even in such a little picture as this one makes his part stand out as a fine example of intellectual characterization. I never have seen Jacqueline photographed as well and I do not think she ever gave such a good performance before. McGrail is a hea\'y with a sense of humor, quite a refreshing departure. When he is putting over something on the girl he does not sneer at her in the approved manner of villains; he laughs heartily and seems to be enjoying himself hugely. We should have more heavies who do not take themselves seriously. In his scenes with Brook he is easy-going and gentlemanly, and there is nothing in his demeanor to suggest that his motives are not lofty. In one sequence Frank Hagney does creditable work as a heavy of a rougher type. But the picture is Weight's. If given a chance with something bigger, I am quite sure that he would do it justice. I believe he has something new to offer, and heaven knows we can do with a few directors who will wander from the beaten path and reveal fresh angles of screen art. * * * Bill Haines and the Etiquette of Golf THEY'RE overdoing Bill Haines as a smart alec. In an altogether satisfactory printed story or motion picture there must be a central character who commands our sympathy, respect and liking. If we can not become interested in some one in a picture we can not become interested in the picture itself. It is upon this theory that our wholly pure hero has been developed. He is in the picture as the magnet for our sympathy, and he is kept more than humanly good in order that he will not forfeit it. To the extent that we are interested in him are we interested in the unfoldment of the story. I have seen Haines play nothing but a smart alec, which probably is all he can play, and a smart alec is a most obnoxious person. In most of his stories, however, he was given some redeeming feature that commanded at least a little respect for him. But in Spring Fever he is obnoxious all the way through. He can not maintain his popularity if he be given a succession of such parts as he plays in this picture. Metro made quite a picture out of it, and Ed Sedgwick directed it acceptably, but how can a picture please us when the chief character, the one whose fate the story deals with, is an altogether unpleasing person? Bill plays the part all right, and can not be blamed for the characterization, but a hero who does not perform one gracious act in the entire picture is the kind of hero that the public soon will tire of. He is a bumptious ass in the opening sequences, but it is not until he reaches the country club that he becomes altogether impossible. Only his golf game is creditable. He has a good stance and a fine swing and it was a pleasure to watch him use any of his clubs, but anyone who behaved as he did on a golf course would have been thrown over the fence before he had been there one hour. He speaks to Joan Crawford, whom he does not know, as she takes her stance for a drive. How did Bill become a crack golf player without learning what an unpardonable sin that is? He knows it, Ed Sedgwick knows it, and the scores of golf players on the Metro lot know it, yet an important scene in the picture is one containing this bad breach of golf etiquette. The picture is the only one I have seen that seems to have been made primarily for golf players, which is a good idea, as there are many millions of them throughout the world, yet it makes its hero do things that will irritate every golfer who sees it. Why deliberately offend the audience that a picture is aimed at? Metro would offer in its defence that Bill does the irritating things to get laughs. In farce you can disregard the conventions, but in straight comedy you can not. Spring Fever is not a farce, for in a farce all the characters are abnormal. In this picture Haines is the only character who is not normal. If there be any value in the comedy, it will appeal most to people who are familiar with goLf courses and country clubs, and the farther it gets away from the atmosphere of such places, the more it weakens the comedy. The country club atmosphere is not maintained. The club is run like a hotel. Haines registers and is shown to his room by a bell boy. I never have been in that kind of country club. The other phases of the story are as absurd as those I have mentioned. Haines, to win Joan Crawford, lies to her, an astonishing thing for a hero to do. A maudlin attempt is made to gloss his infamy by showing him leaving her on their wedding night. Everything in the picture is forced. It contains a weakness common to many pictures, a hero whom the heroine could not possibly love. Such a girl as Joan is shown to be would despise such a hopeless cad as Haines characterized. Imagine a hero who peeps through a keyhole to get a glimpse of a girl in a bedroom! Comedy? Well, if that be Metro's conception of comedy it should try its hand at something else. Spring Fever is impossible all the way through except when Bill swings at the ball. He is quite all right then. ♦ * » On the Necessity of Making Hero Likable THE screen needs new ideas, but in our search for them there are established conventions that can not be ignored altogether. I have protested against heroes who are too good to be human. An all-good character is monotonous, but we have to be careful how we add the spice to take away the monotony. The main consideration must be to keep the audience in sympathy with the hero. We may make our hero a thief if we so establish the reason why he is a thief that the audience will get his viewpoint, and sympathize with him. In The Noose we forgive Dick Barthelmess for being a hijacker because it is established that he was brought up by a crook and knows no other life. Had his upbringing been conventional, and had he become a hijacker in spite of it, he would not be entitled to the sympathy of the audience. In West Point Bill Haines is characterized as about the lowest form of animal that we can have as a hero. He is presented to us as a hopelessly conceited cad, a wisecracking nuisance who would not be tolerated for one hour in any decent