Motion Picture News (Sept-Oct 1916)

2554 MOTION PICTURE NEWS Vol. 14. No. 16 THE POWER OF EVIL " (B. S. Moss — Five Reels) REVIEWED BY PETER MILNE ttT^HE Power of Evil," made for Mr. Moss by the Horkheimer 1 brothers, is quite typical of their product in some respects. The popular appeal that the Horkheimers manage to instill in all their releases is present in " The Power of Evil," and while the picture as a whole was not made for audiences of discrimination, the trade need not be told how well the Balboa product goes with the average motion picture audience. The picture is a society drama by George Bronson-Howard, and while it has a marked tendency to go to extremes, never striking a happy medium, it is otherwise consistently constructed and contains a wealth of strong dramatic situations. The production is effective, a realistic motion picture atmosphere having been obtained in all the phases of the picture. A society man marries after promising to give up drink. The girl is a light-headed society butterfly who cares little for home life in her pursuit of pleasure. Without much ado she leaves her husband for a long house party. In the meantime the husband runs down and injures a girl who is trying to go straight, and taking her to his home, he nurses her back to health. The wife returns and seeing the girl, takes the opportunity to get a separation. Then the young fellow goes back to drink, but the girl of the auto accident reforms him again. The two of them join the Salvation Army. On a slumming party his divorced wife meets him and tries to win him back, but he prefers to stay with the woman who has regenerated him. The leads are ably taken care of by Henry King, Marguerite Nichols and William West. "A CORNER IN COLLEENS" (Triangle-Ince — Five Reels) REVIEWED BY PETER MILNE A PLEASANT little Irish comedy, featuring Bessie Barriscale and Charles Ray, is " A Corner in Colleens," which held the screen at the Rialto theatre. New York, during the week of September 24. There is nothing that is highly sustaining about the production, and there are times when one is inclined to wish that the producers had provided a little more of a story and a little less of Miss Barriscale, but there is a lot of humor scattered over the five reels, which did not go unwasted on the Rialto audience. " A Corner in Colleens " is a picture that one can thoroughly enjoy or thoroughly dislike. Some people are not very fond of Irish dialect, others seem to revel in it, still others possess such thick skulls that the joke set forth in the dialect is liable to go amiss. We believe, however, that there will be enough laughs forthcoming from any audience to warrant this picture a warm reception. And the laughs, when they are not caused by Miss Barriscale, are evoked by the subtitles. Shamrock is one of four orphans under the care of a widow who lives in a small Irish town. She is very much of a tomboy, and when the American who owns the widow's land comes to Ireland, Shammie takes an immediate dislike to him, for he purposes to turn the widow and her charges out of their home. The American, however, is a susceptible fellow, and soon falls in love with Shammie. And she, of course, falls in love with him. But it takes his arrest and imprisonment to make her confess it, and with his release the romance ends happily. Miss Barriscale and Mr. Ray are supported by Margery Wilson, Roy Neill, Aggie Herring, Walter Perry, Alice TaafTe, Alice Lawrence and Charles French. "THE CODE LETTER" (Kalem-General Film — Two Reels) REVIEWED BY THEODORE OSBORN ELTONHEAD <t' I 'HE Code Letter" inaugurates a new series of modern, high1 class pictures, that is being put out by the Kalem Company from the pen of Robert Wells Ritchie, called " Grant, PoHce Reporter." If the following episodes measure up to the excellent quality of the first picture, this series will form a worthy rival to the popular and successful " Hazards of Helen." The first picture is thrilling in the extreme, containing three large, healthy, man-sized thrills, and they have been filmed in such a manner that it is easy to see that they are real incidents and not something evolved by the chicanery of the camera and the director. Tommy Grant, a police reporter, is barred from securing his news at police headquarters owing to the roast which his paper has given the chief of police. Thrown on his own resources, he is enabled by the exercise of what is known in newspaper offices as common ordinary reportorial intelligence, to bring a gang of thieves to book and recover their large quantity of plunder. In order to do this he goes through three distinctly hazardous escapades, one crawling along the ledge of a sk>'scraper several stories from the ground, another going hand over hand on a piece of gas pipe stretched between two buildings high up in the air, and the third, which is one of the most real sure-to-goodness thrills that we have ever seen, is when he has the rope of a painter's scaffold and swings down the whole side of a building. Tony Larkin is the dare-devil acrobat who causes one's hair to stand on end in this picture, and besides being a dare-devil acrobat he is also pleasing as an actor. Ollie Kirkby handles the leading feminine role in a pleasing manner, and the balance of the cast is made up of Robert Ellis, who is also the director; Arthur Albertson, William McKey, and G. Chira. The lighting and photography were well up to standard. "THE LASH" (Lasky-Paramount — Five Reels) REVIEWED BY PETER MILNE tt'T'HE Lash" is a mediocre picture as features in general A go and a poor one considering it bears the Lasky trade mark. Not even the superb photographic work and many gorgeous seascapes, showing waves breaking on a rocky coast can counterbalance the shortcomings of the story. For it is the story that is the real stumbling block. It hinges on the situation in which the unsophisticated girl marries the sophisticated man. She thinks him unfaithful owing to the machinations of his former love and she returns to her island home in sorrow. In the fisher village where she lives it is the custom to lash flirtatious young ladies in the public square, and this disgrace is about to be meted out to her when the husband arrives and saves the day. The story of the picture is so conventional that hardly the best of a production would be able to polish off its rusty spots. Here it is embellished with few situations of a strong character and as a result there is much padding introduced. True, the padding is pretty in practically every instance, but that doesn't alter the case. Nor are the subtitles of " The Lash " meritorious. They don't jibe well with the action and they are filled with quotations which the character of the story does not warrant. Marie Doro is a winsome heroine and Elliott Dexter is a gentlemanly hero. There are James Neill, Thomas Delmar, Veda McEvers, Raymond Hatton, Jane Wolff and Josephine Rice is support. The story was written by Paul West, the scenario done by George D. Proctor and James Young, while the direction was in charge of Mr. Young. "LOVE NEVER DIES" (Bluebird— Five Reels) REVIEWED BY PETER MILNE THERE has always been to us something quite unconvincing about a girl dancing in the moonlight on a lawn. Professional dancers may be so merged with aesthetics and temperaments that they do this, but when it is seen on the screen it seems to lack realism and consequently it is more liable to get a laugh than to throw the spectator into the intended mood. " Love Never Dies " has some such scenes, not a great lot, but enough to call for the above remark. One thing, however, may be said in support of these scenes, and that is that the dancing in them is quite the real thing. It is done by Ruth Stonehouse, who appears as a dancer in the picture. She lives with her uncle in a small city in France, and when Iier childhood lover, a violinist, appears, she elopes with him, forgetting all about a marriage ceremony. The dancing girl goes to Paris, where her name is made over night. The leader of the orchestra continually forces his attentions upon her, but she shows no love for him at all. Finally the violinist sends an opera of his composition to the leader for pro-, duction and the leader, being a villain, steals it. The hero sees the opening performance with the dancer dancing the leading part, and then after a breakdown on her part there comes a reunion between the lovers, the uncle at last seeing that nothing can stand between them. Harvey Gates, inspired by Mendelssohn's "Spring Song," wrote the .story, and William Worthington directed with Friend F. Baker at the camera. Franklyn Farnum as the violinist and Kingsley Benedict as the leader are the other principals, while in support appear Arthur Hoyt, Mrs. Witting, William Canfield, Wadsworth Harris, and T. D. Crittenden.