The Film Spectator (Mar-Dec 1928)

AprU 28, 1928 weeks before the opening of the new theatre, but already I think I can hear the storm of applause that will greet one sequence. Andre de Segurola is one of the commissioners who come from France to announce that Napoleon has become emperor. We hear him make the announcement and then sing the most glorious national hymn. La Marseillaise. It is screen entertainment that will stir the most lethargic film patron and is interesting as presaging what the future of pictures holds for us. Although Darryl Zanuck assured me that the Vitaphone score for the picture as played by Herman Heller's symphony orchestra will sound much better in the theatre than it did in the projection room, I scarcely am ready to believe him. Perhaps it is because I never before heard music while viewing a picture in a projection room, but it is a fact that the scoring of Glorious Betsy seemed to me to be the best I ever heard. If you miss this picture you are not keeping abreast of screen history. * * * Again Herbert Brenon Gives Us a Masterpiece HERBERT Brenon has made an amazingly good picture out of Laugh, Clown, Laugh. Metro borrowed him from United Artists to direct the picture, with Lon Chaney in the star part. The result is completely satisfactory. The picture pleases the eye and appeals to the senses, and throughout its entire length there is an undercurrent of feeling that always can be looked for in a Brenon picture, and which we seldom find in one with a European locale. There is a sweep to Laugh, Clown, Laugh, a suggestion of breadth and freedom that is refreshing. As you watch the picture you have a feeling of comfort, and you do not have to overwork your eyes to see everything that is going on. This effect is produced by Brenon's policy of placing the audience in a good seat, not too far away and not too close. See this picture and you will understand what I mean. You will notice that there are long shots of scenes in which there are but two people, and nothing that they do will be lost upon you by their distance from the camera. Also you will find two, and sometimes three, players in a medium shot, each speaking titles without confusing you for a moment over the identity of each speaker. I have raved about the close-up curse for a long time, and if you wish to find out my conception of its cure, see Laugh, Clown, Laugh when it is released. When Brenon has a scene in an attractive setting, he plays it out with the setting as part of it, consequently we get a succession of beautiful shots without losing anything in the way of drama. There are close-ups in the picture, but they are used intelligently. I can not recall any previous Lon Chaney characterization which reveals the artist as this one does. Lon is splendid throughout. There is a suggestion of over-acting in the first sequence, but that is as far as it gets. He is magnificent in a sequence in the great empty theatre, when he invokes an audience and an orchestra. The leading woman in this picture is Loretta Young, a miss of seventeen, who is as sweet and refreshing as one of the spring flowers that people my backyard where I sit and write. It is her first picture. What kind of an art is it in which a child can step to the front in her first adventure with it and give the impression that she never has known anything else? Loretta is as self-possessed, as easy and as natural before THE FILM SPECTATOR Page Nine the camera as any seasoned player could be. I could not see the slightest evidence of the novice in one of her scenes. She undoubtedly has ability, which will assist her charming and appealing personality to carry her far. Bernard Siegel gives a splendid performance, as also does Nils Asther. Loretta and Asther carry the romance, which Brenon has stretched through the picture with his usual tenderness, sympathy and delicacy. Even while I write I find the spell of Laugh, Clown, Laugh growing on me. It is an excellent picture, the finest that Metro has given us in many a long day. And I insist that it derives its chief strength from what I have been urging on the industry so persistently — the cessation of the ignorant use of closeups. Brenon gives us a motion picture, while so many others give us parades of portraits. When a close-up is necessary, Brenon brings his character forward and gives us a nearer view of him. As we have had no unnecessary ones, we find this necessary one quite refreshing. Which is as it should be. * * * Can't Stand Comparison With Great Predecessor THE street Angel is a picture that everyone should see. The combination of Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell directed by Frank Borzage is one of the most important in motion pictures, and is so efiicient that it could produce nothing that it would be a waste of time to see. It was the fate of these three people to be united in their first venture together in a picture of such extraordinary merit that their future efforts must be confined to striving to reach again a peak once attained, and every succeeding effort can not escape comparison with the first. Seventh Heaven is a much greater picture than Street Angel because it has, in optimism, a great theme and, in the war, a great background. Street Angel is just a romance, and has no theme. Also Seventh Heaven came to us as a glad surprise, introducing to us two youngsters from whom we had no right to expect anything; while street Angel brought us artists whom we regarded as seasoned and from whom perhaps we expected something that no actors are great enough to provide. In view of all this, our first reaction to Street Angel is one of disappointment. But when we think of the extraordinary performances of Charlie and Janet, and the masterly touches and deep understanding of Borzage; and recall the marvelous pictures that the cameraman put on the screen, we arrive at the conclusion that Street Angel is, after all, a pretty good picture. If we could forget Seventh Heaven, we would think it still better. But no amount of thinking could convince us that Street Angel is as good as it should be. In two or three places it drags until it is tiresome, but that is a fault that can be remedied easily. The chief faults of the picture are fundamental ones that should have been eliminated before the script reached the director. As in the case of Ramona, which is reviewed somewhere farther along in this Spectator, Street Angel tries to awaken our interest in two people who are inherently uninteresting at the outset and who remain so throughout the picture. It is not just acting that can put over a picture. The performances must be about something in itself interesting, and which becomes more so to the extent that the acting approaches perfection. We leave Janet and Charlie as we found them: a couple of waifs