Motion Picture Classic (May 1921 - Dec 1927)

WE know a certain dumb flapper who thinks the name of Syd Chaplin’s new film should be ‘‘Charley’s Brother,” instead of “Charley’s Aunt.” •b •b It still remains for some psychologist to explain the close relation of Charley’s feet to his eccentric course down the rosestrewn path of conjugal felicity. And perhaps his next picture (if any) will bear the obvious boxoffice title of “Wan dering Feet,” or “Charley’s Passions.” •b •b 4* Gloria Swanson is now a Marquise. And it is rumored, that with the usual movie lavishness, the next vehicle of Mme. La Marquise will be “Seven Marquises to Baldpate.” all seven. •b •b •b HWHANEMAN N Gloria will play Decoration by Paulette Du Val Vitagraph has split with the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association, Inc., and henceforth will proceed on its own. The idea being that it has seen better Hays. ’b -b •b It will, however, undoubtedly be of interest to see what Vitagraph will produce apart and away from the big combine. Our statistical department is still suffering from Christmas hooch so we cannot sock you in the eye with exact figures, but offhand, it seems to us that there is an appalling percentage of worthless movies, particularly in comparison with the number of acceptable examples of the spoken drama. And that, even if we exclude revivals and include musical comedies and revues. Our eight-minute Brooklyn friend tells us he has every intention of taking in Shaw’s “Canada.” “As I make it out,” he says, “ ‘Canada’ must be one of them zippy rumrunnin’ Border plays, full of North-Western Mounted Police dogs.” •b •b •b It was still another Brooklynite — “somebody’s steno£” who with her friend stood gazing in the window of a jewelry store. The display was the manufacture of platinum wedding-rings : first the blanks then the washers stamped from the blanks, then the washers rubbed up, and so on to the gleaming, alluring finished product. “So that,” said the friend, “is the way ya make platnim weddin’-rings.” “Ta h !” answered the girl. “Whynt they show us how ya get ’em !” It is understood that Miss Doris Deane thinks sufficiently well of Fatty Arbuckle to marry him. Mr. Arbuckle is stirred almost to tears by such touching confidence. In other words, the faith that moves mountains. On the other, or nigh hand, we attempted discussion with Robert Sherwood and he promptly told us to page ourself around the block. According to Mr. Sherwood, last year’s movies displayed a far better effort than last year’s plays. And against his opinion and experience our opinion is so much sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. So there you are, Dear Customers. If we haven’t got what you want, at least we can send out and get it for you. What Sherwood cant argue off, nevertheless, is the continued distortion of an excellent novel into an execrable movie. As a recent example, “The Golden Bed” is a warning. The book was a splendid novel with a logical, forceful development of character and circumstance. There was subtle humor in the book, and whimsy and the irony of reality. The bed was a work of art, of art perverted perhaps, but of a force sufficient to shape the character of its owner and to choke the beauty-starved man to whom it was too rich and too sudden a diet. In the movies, “The Golden Bed” becomes a scenic artist’s, nightmare of tawdriness ; the characters, the stock selfish wife and suffering husband, and the humor, the whimsy and irony the vulgarest and cheapest of subtitular facetiousness. And as if that were not sufficient insult, De Mille has added shots of a symbolic siren performing somewhat unhygienic operations upon her hair with a comb. 51