The Film Spectator (Mar-Dec 1928)

May 12, 1928 of this kind the lips of girls are shown as a heavy and dead black while those of men in the same shots are grotesquely pale in comparison. Any effort to make them look alike should be along the line of toning down the use of lipstick by the girls. Men seldom offend. Arthur Stone, however does in Valley of the Giants. There is a sustained close-up of him making a speech and there is enough make-up on his lips to take care of a chorus. I don't see how he got through the picture without being kissed by a property man. Come to think of it, I believe I overlooked Arthur in my review of the Sills picture. He gives an excellent performance. He is a talented actor. * i^ • ONE reason among many why actors should join Equity and make it a powerful weapon of defense, is the question of rehearsing that the general use of sound devices THE FILM SPECTATOR Page Fifteen will present. Lois Wilson and Eddie Horton spent a week rehearsing a sketch for Vitaphone. They worked on the set one day and got one day's pay. And you can't blame Warner Brothers. The condition is a new one, and no one knows yet how to handle it. But a precedent is being established that may give actors trouble. If all of them joined Equity there would be no danger of trouble. * * * /~VNE by one little improvements are getting into pic^^ tures just to prove that screen art is not altogether stagnant. One that I have noticed lately is the growing habit of showing only one side of a screen telephone talk. This is an improvement founded on common sense. When we know a man is telephoning to his wife there is no reason whatever why the wife should be shown if the husband's message is the only part of the conversation that advances the story. AS THEY APPEAL TO A YOUTH By Donald Beaton — The Spectator's \7-Year-0ld Critic THE nearest approach to the perfect picture has been made in The Patriot. Ernst Lubitsch directed it, and Emil Jannings and Lewis Stone acted in it. There were other good performances, of course, but the work of Jannings and Stone will go down in motion picture history, as will the direction of Lubitsch. But for the fact that it does not have sound, The Patriot would be at least iive years ahead of any motion picture released in the last few months. I think it is ahead of its time, because it leaves more to the intelligence of the audience than any picture yet made. In a few years all pictures will have to respect the intelligence of the audience, something they rarely do now. Every director in the motion picture industry should see The Patriot at least three times. It is the perfect textbook. It is also the sort of picture that anyone would go to see several times. I imagine that it could be enjoyed just as much the second or third time as it could be the first. There would be new things to find in it each time. The Patriot has no tremendous sets in it, at least none peopled to any great degree; yet during its entire ten reels there is not a dragging moment. Everything moves along swiftly, but at no time does it move so fast that it gets away from the persons who see it. There never has been a performance on the screen before like the characterization of the mad czar which Emil Jannings creates in The Patriot. The assassins of the czar are the real sympathetic characters of the picture, but Jannings manages to make himself also sympathetic and still leave the murderers in the right. One of the many things which contributed to the tense drama of the story was the forming of the murder plot by the czar's only friend. Jannings had a ticklish thing there, because if he failed to win the sympathy of the audience, his death, at the instigation of his friend, would have had no dramatic interest. On the other hand, if he won the hearts of the audience completely, his friend would become the heavy instead of the hero. The master hand of Lubitsch was evident in the brilliant medium Jannings finally struck. In all the years Lewis Stone has been on the screen and in all the clever performances to his credit, he never has given a hint of the ability and power he displays in The Patriot. The greatest compliment to his work that I can think of is that he comes closer than anyone else ever has to stealing a picture from Jannings. Florence Vidor never for a moment allows her part to get away from her. Her work is very clever. Harry Cordingly is a newcomer, but he is splendid in a character part. Vera Veronina impresses in a small part. THE only fault to find with Good Time Charley is that it deals with a character strange to the average moving picture fan. Good Time Charley is a song-and-dance man, and what is a normal action to a song-anddance man is insanity to some one who is not or has not been connected with the stage. I dare say that the clever characterization of Warner Oland as Charley was only understood by about one in twenty-five of the people who saw it. However, the Vitaphone connected with the picture is far more interesting than any of the merits or demerits of the visual parts of the combination. I saw Good Time Charley in a projection room, yet it had a complete score all through it. There is no doubt but that sound is a great invention. All through the showing of Street Angel, which had a Movietone score, I wanted the characters to speak. At times it would seem that they were going to, and I would lean forward with a feeling of expectancy, only to sink back, disappointed, when nothing happened. Even during The Patriot, which had no sound of any kind, I kept imagining the added power of the scenes if only some of the titles were spoken. Good Time Charley was like Street Angel. There were splendid places for the characters to speak. However, they were passed up even when they could have been put in very easily. Warner Oland, a splendid character actor, has the leading role as "Good Time Charley". Clyde Cook, who, with the exception of Charles Chaplin, is the finest comedian in motion pictures, gives a brilliant performance. Cook is not only a fine comedian, but he is one of the best actors in the business. He should be given bigger parts. I don't know the name of the man who played the heavy in Good Time Charley, but his work deserves favorable mention. Helene Costello does good work also. BEAU Broadway may be a good picture. It may be bad, too, for all I know. Sue Carol was in it, so it was naturally a success for me. I said a little while ago that she would be a good actress as soon as she got some more experience. Well, she is getting experience all the time, and in Beau Broadway she is delightful. But for Lew Cody's clever work, she would have stolen the picture. Sue has a splendid personality, and some producer is overlooking a great bet in not starring her in a series of stories about young people. She has the quality that made Wallace Reid successful. He was successful because he was typical of young American men. Everyone who saw him on the screen