Motion Picture Magazine (Aug 1928-Jan 1929)

AVALANCHE /F you simply must have your Zane Grey in strong, straight, unadulterated doses, you'll probably be able to stomach "Avalanche." Not only is the story the too utterly usual tosh, but the screen version is poorly directed, poorly enacted, poorly cast, poorly photographed, poorly edited and poorly titled. It is one of those things where a dance-hall gal and a gambler find regeneration, or something, in love. Interwoven in this well-worn fabric is the kid brother for whom the card-sharp makes sacrifices, and who is vamped by the barroom danseuse who is threatened with the loss of her lover when the kid comes back from college. Jack Holt is the lad who deals 'em off the bottom of the deck in a clumsy close-up. Baclanova, the gorgeous Russian, is criminally miscast as a honky-tonk siren, and photographed in a manner to ruin any fan following she may have developed. SHADY LADY " OHADY LADY" is well cast, well directed and well played. O This drama of the half-world is nicely above the average of first-class program attractions, but it misses being in the special class because of story weakness which causes a bad let-down in what should have been a swift and smashing climatic sequence. The tale is a thriller* involving rum and rum-runners, a newspaper kid, a debonair adventurer in things outside the law, a very desperate villain, and a shady lady who ranks with the most fascinating among her sisterhood. Director Edward H. Griffith has painted his canvas in as vivid colors as the story pigments would permit, and seasoned troupers such as Phyllis Haver, Robert Armstrong and Louis Wolheim play every part to the hilt. In such a cast Russell Gleason, son of Lucille Webster and James Gleason, makes his cinema debut as the cub reporter, and holds his own with the best of them. PEP AND PREP ,/ND now they've decided to glorify the prep-military academy. 73 Sort of a sequel to "The High School Hero" only done in uniform to honor the kids whose dads pay more than taxes for their education. Director David Butler made both. In this, he has the colorful Culver Military Academy in Indiana for his background, Nancy Drexel to motivate puppy love competition and David Rollins as athletic cup-winner. All three are equally effective. There's the school cut-up, the school blackguard who turns from yellow to white in the end of the story — in fact, all of the requisites for a clever, light school comedy. You'll get a lot of low chuckles. A spectacular horseback riding competition replaces the usual basketball game and track takes the place of football. Young and old will get a mild kick out of seeing this picture. It's diverting and pleasant, but we hope they don't do it too often. GERALDINE 7TJST once more the movies are asking us to accept an obviously attractive girl as an ugly duckling merely because she is equipped with large, round glasses. Eddie Quillan drops in and in the astonishingly short period of two weeks transforms Marian Nixon into a ravishing creature by persuading her to abandon the glasses and wear knee-length dresses. We are even asked to take seriously Marian's remark that she "didn't have to wear glasses but thought they were attractive." The transformation complete, even her best friends don't know Marian and she goes flaming youth in a night-club and ends up in jail. If we didn't know that Pathe thought this was a good story, we might applaud them for making a pretty good job out of impossible material. As it is, we pass gracefully from the subject of the production and merely pause to note that Eddie Quillan has a nice, easy manner. 61