The Film Spectator (Mar-Dec 1928)

Page Eight when they are doing it. If close-ups of the two had to be used, grouping them so that the bars of a door or window would show would have relieved the sequence of some of its stupidity. I think The Yellow Lily would have been a really good motion picture if it had been edited by people who had at least a slight notion of what a motion picture is. It is a shame to see such fine opportunities lost, and so much money wasted, through the inability of the production staff to grasp the fundamentals of the business it is in. Anyone with the most elemental knowledge of the business knows that a dollar spent on a set must remain on the screen a certain length of time to justify its expenditure. In this picture we have elaborate sets which flit across the screen to give place to an endless parade of utterly senseless close-ups. Ordinary business sense would dictate that the sets should be shown for a longer time to justify their cost. The First National production staff did not seem to imderstand this picture either as a business proposition or as an example of screen art. It gives us no idea of Korda's qualifications as a director. Any school boy can direct good actors in close-ups. I don't know how much Korda had to do with the cutting. If The Yellow Lily as I saw it is his idea of a good motion picture, one of us must be sadly wrong. * * * This Sue Carol Miss Is Going to Be Heard From THERE is something about Sue Carol that is going to make her a tremendous favorite with the public. It isn't her acting, for the foundation of her popularity was laid in pictures in which she was not called upon to do any, and in which she could not have responded if she had received such call, for she knew nothing about the art. All she had at first were beauty of face and form and an air of breeding, and I, for one, did not take her seriously, for it takes more than those attributes to spell success on the screen. The other night I saw Sue again. She plays opposite Lew Cody in a Cody-Aileen Pringle picture, Beau Broadway, and it is mighty lucky for Metro that she does play in it, for she is almost the whole thing. She still is no great shakes as an actress, but she is learning rapidly and is delightful in all her scenes. She is brimming over with personality more provocative even than that of Clara Bow, but I doubt if she ever will develop an acting ability equalling that of the clever Clara. After seeing Beau Broadway I have put Sue down on my exceedingly limited list of attractive girls who are going to get somewhere. In this picture Metro again demonstrates its flair for lea%dng something out of comedy that it should have in it for its own good. Mai St. Clair wrote the story and directed it. Somebody else adapted it and somebody else wrote the continuity. Probably it was in the adaptation that it first took sick, for it is quite weak as shown on the screen. The thing that Metro does not seem able to get into its comedies is sparkle. They are not alive, buoyant, and brilliant as comedies should be. Beau Broadway plods along, painstakingly resorting to every surefire method of provoking a giggle, lacking a connected narrative in which anyone can become interested, and being entertaining only when Sue Carol is on the screen. And Cody and Miss Pringle can be blamed for none of this. Lew is a talented actor and there is no doubt about Aileen's ability, but no amount of artistic acting can overcome THE FILM SPECTATOR May 12, 1928 story deficiency. There is not a single new thing in this comedy except in some of the titles. Jim Jeffries — a good touch, having him in a picture — is going to die and asks Cody to take care of his granddaughter. Lew prepares a nursery for the reception of the child. The titles keep pounding away at the fact that a little girl is coming, and keep it up so persistently that you know, long before you see her, that the granddaughter is grown up. When Sue arrives and is disclosed as the granddaughter there is no comedy in it for the intelligent viewer because it has been ballyhooed too much in advance. This old thing has been done a thousand times before, yet Metro gives it to us now as the 1928 model of comedy. Cody gives up his room to Sue and sleeps in the bed he prepared for her. It is a child's bed in which he has to fold himself up like a jackknife. He is shown to be a wealthy man, living in a gorgeous home, yet the only beds in the place were his own big one and the child's size one. We are expected to laugh at that sort of comedy. Metro should stop trying to make pictures of this sort. In Miss Pringle and Cody it has an ideal team to give the screen something that it needs, domestic features along the lines of the Drew tworeel comedies. Such pictures would be successful, for their appeal would be universal. But they would have to be clever, which makes me dubious about Metro tacklingthem under its present production methods. And I would suggest that if Sue Carol plays in any more pictiires with Lew she be cast as his little girl, not as his sweetheart. Even in a comedy lacking everything else there is room for the best of taste. * * * Offering a Suggestion About Adapting Books ALFRED E. Green, who seemed to be making a specialty of directing musical comedies that were made over for the screen, has come to bat with a drama that is really dramatic. Honor Bound, a Fox program picture, tells a strong story in an interesting way. It deals with the convict labor problem, and has as its principal characters Estelle Taylor and George O'Brien, with Leila Hyams, Tom Santschi, Al Hart, and Sam de Grasse as the supporting players. It is not a particularly enlivening picture, as its setting is drab, and Green has taken no pains to soften the harsh outlines of the theme. Miss Taylor does excellent work in an unsympathetic role. I was not aware that she was such a fine dramatic actress as this picture proves her to be. O'Brien carries the burden of the story, and carries it well. If our present crop of young men developes only one really great screen actor, my hunch is that George will be the one. The picture has several big moments in it, and one thrill that thrills. The prison camp dormitory burns down, and it is a sure enough fire. There has been noticeable a steady improvement in the quality of Fox program pictures and Honor Bound is another step forward. No exhibitor need be afraid to book it. The chief weakness of the picture has little to do with its entertainment value. The story is set in a prison camp, and it is necessary to get O'Brien there before the thing really starts, consequently it is of little importance how his conviction is brought about. But even an unimportant feature of a picture should be logical. I have not read the book from which the screen story was taken, but from what I see on the screen I gather that Estelle Taylor is