Motion Picture Classic (Jan-Aug 1919)

By FREDERICK JAMES SMITH out tenderfoot washing dishes in Twin Bridge’s restaurant. Ora Carew isn’t very interesting as the heroine, we regret to report. Max Marcin’s successful trick melodrama, “Cheating Cheaters,’’ has reached the screen via Select with Clara Kimball Young in Marjori Rambeau’s original role of Ruth Brockton. The story built around the efforts of two gangs of crooks to fleece each other, each believing the other to be a wealthy family, is adequately enough adapted to the screen. There is considerable humor. Miss Young is satisfactory enough. Jack Holt is the heroic scoundrel, and Anna Q. Nilsson’s prettiness stands out strongly. “Out of the Shadow,’’ (Paramount), is the usual hectic sort of thing that has been hurting Pauline Frederick for many, many months. Suspected of killing her husband, Ruth Minchin is acquitted. She suspects that her benefactor is the guilty man and, altho she loves him, she starts out to solve the mystery. In the end another proves to be the culprit, so the widow and her proven friend are united. “Out of the Shadows” is a pleasant evening’s entertainment. This sort of thing is right if it points a bit of philosophy or aids one’s understanding of life, but not if it is mere machine-made melodrama. Willard Mack’s drama, “Shadows,” in which Goldwyn stars Geraldine Farrar, considerably discouraged us. In the first place it is the old, old story of the woman with a past who is suddenly confronted with said past at the very apex of her happiness. In this instance Muriel Barnes is the happy wife of Judson Barnes. But some years before she was known as Cora Lamont, at that time being a dance hall belle in gay and giddy Alaska. Indeed, she had been deceived by a rough gentleman named Jack McGuff into thinking she was the lawfully wedded Mrs. McGuff. But the McGuff person really had a wife back in the states. As we intimated. Cora, or rather Muriel, has reached the point of having everything her heart desired when McGuff appears upon the horizon. But she neatly traps him by scattering her jewels about her boudoir, screaming when McGuff appears and thereby causing his death when a policeman shoots the visitor, thinking him a burglar. So Muriel, alias Cora, is left to her happiness. The drama is worked out without any particular imagination being displayed upon the part of Mr. Mack or the director. Nor are we attracted by Miss Farrar’s performance as Cora-Muriel. If nothing else, she photographs badly. Tom Santschi is hyper-red blooded, if you like that sort of thing, as Monsieur McGuff and Milton Sills is hyper-frigid as the loving husband, Judson Barnes. There is nothing particularly distinctive about J. G. Hawk’s latest drama, “Breed of Men,” (Artcraft), in which William S. Hart appears. Herein Hart plays a reckless cowboy and the innocent tool of a land swindler who jams him into office as sheriff and then proceeds to sell out the whole district without regard to the land claims of the original owners. But Sheriff “Careless”Carniody refuses to be a part to the swindle, pur.sues the swindler to Chicago and brings him back to Arizona to make restitution. Incidentally. “Careless” wins the heart of Ruth Fellows, one of the swindler’s victims. We like Hart as “Careless,” but we still keep on wishing for more original vehicles. Lawrence McClo.sky’s “Silent Strength,” (Vitagraph), written for Harry Morey, docs little m.ore than, provide the virile Vitagraph star with double exposure characterizations as cousins who look alike but are utterly unlike under the skin. Henry Crozier robs his country cousin of an estate and then dares to marry the cousin’s sweetheart, still keeping up the pose that he is the honest Dan La Roche. Rather than disillusion the young woman. La Roche keeps silent, even to going to prison for the other’s misdeeds. But the villain finally gets his deserts and La Roche gets the girl. With trick camera work. M/orey punches himself in the jaw and does other apparently impossible things, but, outside of this, the storv is pretty dull. Betty Blythe is the heroine — and a very, very cold lady indeed. “Day Dreams,” (Goldwyn). is intended for a fragile fantasy, but it rolls lumberingly along, never once soaring cloud-ward. It is the lilt of an odd little girl who fancies that her knight errant will come to her from afar — and — gracious — he does. But he isn’t really a knight, for he is no other than Dan O’Hara, hired by George Graham, the cement king, to disillusion the young woman. But Primrose falls in love with Dan, everything ends happily and the amateur knight errant develops into the real thing after all. Unfortunately, the whole spirit of whimsy is lost. “Day Dreams” is as fragile as hamburg steak and onions. Madge Kennedy can play guileless young woman innocently involved in thin-ice situations, but she certainly doesn’t suggest the dreamer, Primrose. Iff fact, Primrose suggests lunacy rather than fantasy all the way thru. Indifferent acting, but some rather prett}’ backgrounds. “Mandarin’s Gold,” (World Film), is a Kitty Gordon drama, the story of a bridge fanatic who falls asleep and fancies herself in all sorts of tribulations in Chinatown due to her mania for gambling. Miss Gordon is her cold and statuesque self as the bridge dreamer, while Warner Gland make a crafty Chinaman as sinister as only Gland can. “Mandarin’s Gold” is, however, just machine-made melodrama. Vitagraph’s “The Lion and the Mtouse” impressed us as being rather dull and uninspired. The Charles Klein drama has lost value en route to the screen. Alice Joj'ce is pleasing as Shirley Rossmore, Conrad Nagel artificial as young Ryder, while the real surprise is Mona Kingsley in a minor role. “Go West. Young Man,” with Tom Moore, is a Doug F' a i r b a n k s stor>' minus the acrobatics Gloria Swanson piroves to be a distinct screen discovery in Cecil de Mille’s “Dont Change Your Husband” (Forty-five) 1