Motion Picture (Feb-Jul 1930)

rade m, NOVEL PLOT MASKS OF LOVE "Masks of Love" is no mean monument to Kenneth Hawks' directorial abilities. Though ill-fated in production, this picture presents Elinor Glyn's best scenario effort. Based on the magazine serial, "Such Men Are Dangerous" (under which title it will be released outside of California), the story has a novel plot. It is high-class melodrama — enough so to hold you enthralled. It is also blessed with the romantic presence of Warner Baxter. From the opening scenes, when the beautiful wife of an ugly financial wizard flees from his home on their wedding night, until the Rebuilt man (literally) proposes to extract his revenge, the picture captures your imagination. It is a vivid modern fairy story. Catherine Dale Owen is superbly lovely as the stricken heroine, but perhaps a bit too cold and reserved. Hedda Hopper deftly supplies the balance of humor. THE COLLEGE RACKETEER A REDEEMING CAST Or when college boys go bad. And then go good when a Beautiful Influence comes into their lives. James Murray is the thoroughly believable college hero (bad, then good) who leaves cloistered halls for the rum racket but returns in time to save his honor, gal and the big crew race. Bad as this sounds (and bad as it is), you will nevertheless thrill at the way James Murray does his stuff. The lad has a way of playing crook parts that makes those in the audience reach for their pockets to make sure that what they have is still there (in my case, thirty-five cents and a last year's street car transfer). Laughs, and good ones, are supplied by Lee Moran, while Kathryn Crawford is the gal who still believes, 'though the whole world is against our Jimmie. When you go to see this one, try to remember that it's just another movie and you won't be disappointed. wT' \ w I ^K ' Ilnil fSliis : lu! ' * Ik .. ■■ TEMPLE TOWER At first I thought they had res OLD-FASHIONED urrected a chapter or an old-time serial thriller and put words to it! There were all the tricks that sent shivers up my more youthful spine when I wore shirtwaists and a wire "rat," the haunted house with trap-doors and hidden panels, the old miser, the stolen emeralds with blood on them, the Masked Menace, the lightning flashes, the persecuted heroine (persecution is very becoming to Marceline Day). Henry Walthall gloats and glowers in the style of the early Pearl White period. As a sequel to Ronald Colman, Kenneth McKenna, who plays Bulldog Drummond, lacks subtlety, but subtlety would be out of place in such blood and thunder milieu. He saunters through the amazing adventures that take him over high walls, through secret passages and up rope ladders with British imperturbability. CHILDREN OF PLEASURE At last the theme-song writer GRAY SURPRISES becomes hero material tor a movie. Larry Gray as the tin-pan-alleyer who rhymes Moon and June for a living furnishes the only surprise of this mediocre story of two girls, a rich and spoiled blonde and a self-sacrificing working-girl, who contend for the affections of a young man. In the scene where he loses his illusions about the girl he is on the point of marrying and recklessly jazzes his tender love song, so that the crowd may dance to his broken romance, Larry Gray does some real acting and proves that he has a whole lot more than an infectious smile and a pleasant parlor voice. The songs are extremely poor. The lyrics are even poorer than poor. As the flirtatious blonde, Helen Johnson, and, as the true-hearted typist, Wynn Gibson are newcomers who haven't quite found their camera angles, as yet. 61