The Film Spectator (Mar-Dec 1928)

Page Eighteen THE FILM SPECTATOR June 23, 1928 very good, and revealed a genius for drawing characters ^ which I did not know he possessed. There was one scene where the girl was about to leave home after her wedding. Seiter made her just as silly as all girls are under those circumstances. However, the fact that he was good in the lighter moments did not keep Seiter from doing well in the heavier scenes. All in all. Happiness Ahead is pretty good entertainment. Lilyan Tashman gives a good performance. Charles Sellon and Edj^the Chapman are good, also. SOUND and color would have made Lilac Time one of the finest motion pictures ever produced, because it was good, even without them. Lilacs, of course, figured prominently in the story, but they were shown on the screen in a dull, uninteresting grey. There are several beautiful garden scenes, also done in a nice, sombre battleship color. The roaring engines and machine guns of the airplanes are silent, although I suppose those will have sound later. Lilac Time manages to overcome those disadvantages to a certain degree, for it is a very good picture. George Fitzmaurice directed, and did some very fine work. First National, with Alexander Korda and Fitzmaurice, seems to have a corner on the directors who can paint beautiful pictures on the screen, so it ought to give them a decent break and shoot pictures in colors. As is customary with him, Fitzmaurice makes Lilac Time a succession of beautiful shots; but he also puts power and force into his direction, a quality he hasn't displayed very strongly before. The air stuff in Lilac Time is splendid, coming closer to Wings than any other picture has so far. The air battles are great, particularly the one between Gary Cooper and the German ace. Strange to relate. Cooper, although he was the hero of the piece, did not win the fight. It was more or less of a draw. There was nothing particularly new about the story of Lilac Time; since it is the same, practically, as all the war stories since The Big Parade, only airplanes are used. Colleen Moore was starred in Lilac Time; and, as usual, she gave a superb performance. Gary Cooper, who played opposite her, did better work in this than he has in anything so far. For the first time, he gave evidence of a sense of humor, without which no screen hero can be expected to wholly win the sympathy of the audience. The young flyers, although there were too many to keep track of, were good. The rest of the cast, which included Burr Macintosh, Katherine McGuire, Owen Moore, George Cooper, and Arthur Lake, was quite satisfactory. ' — AVIATION STORIES ADAPTIONS TITLES LIEUT. E. H. ROBINSON Oxford 3753 OLympia 3806 THE Actress is quite satisfactory as a motion picture. It isn't either very good or very bad. One's interest is mildly excited during its unreeling, but the interest never becomes very much aroused. Sidney Franklin directed The Actress, and I have yet to see one of Franklin's pictures which I have not enjoyed. He has a faculty for putting beautiful production into his stuff, and this picture is no exception to the general rule. There is one sequence in color which is beautiful. Color adds so much to motion pictures that I can not see how producers keep on ignoring it, because it is as inevitable as sound. After enough color education, audiences are not going to be satisfied with dull greys. However, I must get back to The Actress. Franklin has ideas about direction which I think are fine. He always puts his camera in a logical place, something few directors do. A group of his characters are sitting around a fireplace, enjoying the heat. The average director would have shot them with just the glow of the fire on their faces. Their feet would have been stretched out for no apparent reason, since the fire would not be in the range of the camera. Franklin shoots through the flames in the grate. That's good stuff. Ramona in England **Ramona has discovered an artistic conscience in Hollywood. "It is the best work of screen-art that America has yet produced. "It is terribly tragic, beautifully sincere, starkly simple, and altogether unforgetable. "It is assuredly one of the few productions that make cinema history. "It is one of the greatest of great films, marvelous in its historical sweep, scenic panorama and narrative glamour. "The scenario by Finis Fox is a model of constructive development." G. A. Atkinson London Daily Express