Motion Picture Magazine (Aug 1928-Jan 1929)

FOUR WALLS /J DRAMA laid in the underworld, interesting mostly because S± of John Gilbert's personality. John is a gang leader, who serves a jail sentence and there learns that the. only walls that can imprison a man are the walls of his own soul. The plot concerns his struggle, after he is released, to preserve the freedom his spirit has found. This is made much harder because his hard-boiled girl friend, Joan Crawford, is pulling him in the other direction. Besides this spiritual theme, there are a gang war and other forms of action to entertain you. Vera Gordon, as the mama, does her mother stuff well, but she doesn't seem like any kin of Jack's. Carmel Myers is unusually good, as a plain spinster with an unrequited passion for Jack. The hero is supposed to be a lad who resists one temptation after another. It seemed to me he just said, "No! No!" two or three times and then quietly gave in. THE CARDBOARD LOVER OUR best comedienne in her best comedy. Marion Davies has a part which gives her a chance to clown and carry on to her heart's content. She is an American schoolgirl, traveling in Paris. Of course, she falls in love with a handsome but unresponsive young Frenchman, handsomely played by Nils Asther. He loves a seductive French lady but feels she is not good for him, so, as he can't get rid of Marion, he hires her to get rid of the French lady. To this end she disguises herself as his fiancee, as a bell-hop, as a bedspread, and other absurd things, and after a long struggle she lands her man. The result is a riotous comedy which you are advised not to miss. Marion is artless and engaging and mischievous and all those other things she does so well. Jetta Goudal looks quite charming and depraved as the French lady. This is ridiculous, but nice. We advise cutting yourself a piece of cardboard and making yourself a nice time. CELEBRITY rHIS is really Robert Armstrong's picture. He duplicates the characterization that made him famous in " Is Zat So?" — the dumb prize-fighter with sex appeal. Clyde Cook is, the manage^ who has a few more brains than his pal, and loves Robert as he would his idiot child. Inspired by Gene Tunney, the plot has a little fun with the idea of a prize-fighter whose books are his best friends. Clyde hires a mother, a fiancee, and a ghost writer, fcr his moron protege, and lands him on all the front pages as the Intellectual Athlete. Everything is going to be all right, when someone publishes the poems our hero really wrote, and the humiliation nearly costs him the championship. Clyde Cook is excellent, and Robert Armstrong is absolutely perfect. He appeals to everyone's maternal instinct or something. It would have been a lot better without Lina Basquette as the fiancee. THE WATERHOLE rHIS is one of my favorite plots — that familiar one about the pampered darling of the rich being tamed by a he-man from the open spaces. Only in this case, to my great relief, the girl simply does not respond to the treatment. You know these spoiled heroines usually end by washing the hero's shirt and singing at their work. But even Jack Holt can't make this girl give up her willful ways. The scene of their little domestic experiment is a cave in the desert, and it ends in their struggle to cross the burning sands, with parched throats and exhausted limbs. Harrowing, entertaining, and charmingly acted by Nancy Carroll, Jack Holt, and John Boles. There is a little prelude done in technicolor or some equally runny process. A dull episode in the prehistoric ages, which contributes nothing to the picture or to Nancy's beauty. You had better be a little late. It is our opinion that "The Waterhole" is disappointingly, but appropriately a bit wet. 61