Motion Picture Classic (1923, 1924, 1926)

The Celluloid Critic THE cinema ides of March have come and gone, leaving the laurel wreath more than slightly askew on the brow of the silverscreen Duse, Lillian Gish. The histrionic talents of Miss Gish have come to be a sort of film tradition. We have been told of her genius by everyone from George Jean Nathan (not recently, however) to Joseph Hergesheimer. She was the lily maid who walked the lonely heights. At various times I have been impressed with the Gish abilities. However, they have never dazzled me since Miss Gish departed from the Mamaroneck plantation of Marse Griffith. I looked upon both "The White Sister" and "Romola" as mediocre tests of genius. It remained for "La Boheme," built from the Henri Murger story from which the Puccini opera was constructed, to disillusion me completely. Not, mind you, that "La Boheme" wont be a box-office smash. But it discloses the limitations of La Gish in ghastly fashion. Lillian Gish's Limitations IVAurger, you know, was the first to write of the Latin Quarter's glamours. Du Maurier and others followed, but Murger was the pioneer in exploiting Bohemia, with its amours, its starving artists, its beautiful models and its gay abandon. In "La Boheme" Mimi loves the poet, Rodolphc, she sacrifices everything for her love and she dies — a Camille of the Paris garrets. My complaint about Miss Gish is that she does not fill the role of Mimi. She is pathetic, she is wistful, she is a Broken Blossoms waif, but she is never the little sister of the four Bohemians — Rodolphe, Coline, Marcel and Schannard — who gave her all for love. She has good moments — Miss Gish is too good a technician to fail utterly — but she is never Mimi. The performance sharply defines her limitations. She can play suffering, broken heroines — but genius seems to me something else again. The actual honors of "La Boheme" are captured by John Gilbert. Here is an actor with three astonishing characterizations in a row : the prince of "The Merry Widow," the doughboy of "The Big Parade," and now the poet of "La Boheme." Any one of these would make an unknown into a star. I am not sure but that his Rodolphe is the best of the trio. It has more breadth, swing and surety. It Ball Frederick James Smith Adolphe Menjou and Florence Vidor in "The Grand Duchess and the Waiter" is a corking performance. Renee Adoree is a delightful Musetta and George Hassell, ex-musical comedy comedian, makes the role of Schaunard stand out. But the major credit of "La Boheme" must go to King Vidor, the director. Vidor has now pretty definitely proved himself the best of our native directors. He injects a spirit and movement into "La Boheme." The tragic romance has both color and verve. Music lovers are likely to quarrel with the celluloid "La Boheme" because it fumbles favorite situations of the opera. This can be laid to the scenarist, Fred de Gresac, who doubtless was endeavoring to fit the romance to the milk-and-water way Miss Gish intended to interpret Mimi. This is not the fault of Vidor, who took his materials and achieved admirable results. "La Boheme" will doubtless be a popular picture. But I can not forget the Broadway premiere giggles that greeted Miss Gish when, as Mimi, she fled thru the woods of the Bois de Boulogne on that gay spring day with her passionate Rodolphe in pursuit. Mimi was just a New England schoolma'am fleeting with her histrionic traditions. Miss Gish will have to do a lot of cinematic suffering before I can forget that. Greta Garbo Arrives \A/hile it is painful to detail the eclipse of Miss Gish, "it is pleasant to report the appearance of a new luminary on our screen horizon. The newcomer is a somber-eyed Norsewoman, one Greta Garbo, who seems to me to have more possibilities than anyone since the Pola Negri of "Passion." This Garbo has a fine abandon, a splendid fire, a surprising sense of characterization. She isn't afraid to act. That she was able to stand out of an inferior story, poorly directed, is all the more to her credit. Miss Garbo makes her debut in Vicente Blasco Ibanez's "Torrent," directed by Monta Bell. The Ibanez story is a cumbersome tale, of a Spanish girl tossed aside by a young Castilian dandy. She goes away, becomes a great singer and comes back to the little town, drawn by the old love. But, because of his mother, Don Rafael Bridl repulses her again and she goes back to her footlights and her high notes. So La Brunno goes on her glittering way and Don Rafael putters about his fireside in carpet slippers, sighing for his lost romance. Ibanez points the un-Haysian 50