Motion Picture Magazine (Aug 1928-Jan 1929)

In Review BLINDFOLDED 71 /TR. FOX offers a new crook drama with suspense enough to keep xVJL you on the edge of your chair; and a large and costly bouquet goes to Charles Klein, whose first picture this is, for showing us that the camera, when properly handled, can be 100% effective without the aid of talking and noise. Another one is due to Lois Moran, who steps out of her characteristic pallid purity and delivers the most believable performance of an amnesia victim yet seen on the screen. Incidentally, Lois also steps out in her lost memory sequences with a make-up, coiffure and costume that will make seekers after "It" sit up and take notice. Let's hope Lois forgets herself more often from now on. This story of the trailing of a gang of jewel thieves by Policeman George O'Brien has much of the excitement of "The Unholy Three," thanks to the splendid direction of Klein, who learned camera manipulation with the UFA chappies. It's a picture that doesn't pretend to be a super-special but is fine entertainment for the entire family. Y RILEY THE COP OU might have known it from the title. You don't expect subtle humor, suspense, well-drawn plot or fine characterization from a picture with such a name. You emphatically don't get them. On the other hand, you do expect a lot of loud laughs, an easy and sentimental tear or two, a scene where the hero mislays his pants, and some amusing intoxication-gags. And you won't be disappointed here, you'll get all of them. J. Farrell McDonald plays the warm-hearted cop who is sent to Europe to bring back a youngster — Dave Rollins — suspected of embezzling, and gets himself so mixed up with steins and frauleins that his conscientious prisoner has a dreadful time getting his captor home. The scene where Louise Fazenda, in a tow wig, and McDonald compete in making up faces is worth the price of admission — provided you don't sit in loge seats. Young Rollins, in spite of some odd mannerisms, has a taking smile and dimples. Nancy Drexel is the girl. This picture will surely appeal to a lot of people who like to have sobs and smiles on their program. It's clean stuff and full of fun and pulls the heartstrings nicely. McDonald can always be counted on for the funny business, and a cop's uniform offers many possibilities. You can safely take Father or the children to see it. wt'4 '^ Jh Cap j^. 1 f ,J^-$im With * ' ^^^^ Wk ** OUTCAST /N WHICH Edmund Lowe is Corinne Griffith's man — and he done her wrong. With Corinne as a lady of the streets, Edmund Lowe as a gentleman who puts her in an apartment and keeps the latchkey, and Kathryn Carver as a society dame who cheats on her rich husband, this offering makes a bid for originality in the direction of fewer and worse morals. Following the Michael Arlen tradition, however, everyone is so deucedly decent about their misbehavior that the picture stacks up as a mild and inoffensive little thing. Lowe insists on "doing the right thing, by Jove" when he gives his mistress the air, and leaves a check for §5,000. Miss Carver, however, the married lady for whom he leaves Corinne, shocks and pains him by refusing to go away with him to South America and "be open about our love"; leaving the jolly decent Edmund no other course than to return to the wide open and highly affectionate Miss Griffith. When Hubert Henry Davies wrote the play, it .made our grandmothers' bustles bristle, but nowadays it is good for a few yawns. THE SPIELER 2>EWARE of pickpockets! Such might be called the moral of this ■D little carnival opera. The spielers, the hot dog men, the "three chances for a ham or a bacon" operators are all in on the crooked side of the carnival business, according to this picture. Even Alaa Hale, the hero, is dodging nights-off in the jug until Renee Adoree, the honest show-owner, reforms him. Of course, love does it. And when Renee Adoree provides the love interest, you know there's much that's good in the picture. Not strikingly original. Yet Director Tay Garnett has managed to give this, his second picture, some deft touches which make it wholesomely amusing. Miss Adoree is so at home that you remember she began her life-work in the circus. Fred Kohler makes a tough menace bent upon breaking the neck of any suckerreformers. The carnival background, which offers many opportunities for the movies, has been the locale of a number of pictures recently and offers a marvelous chance for a sound subject — which makes one appreciate the blessed silence of "The Spieler"! This is average program entertainment for all people not too old to run after circus parades and admit a fondness for hot dogs. But we're getting rather fed up on this style of thing. Isn't it about time we called a halt on circus, and crook and underworld pictures? 63