Motography (Jan-Jun 1918)

June 22, 1918 MOTOGRAPHY 1187 tions. Support — Milton Sills, Jack Holt and Marcia Manon give this picture much class. Production — Unique, with clever flashes of aboriginal dances and rites. Photography — Good. This ought to get the money, as it is a fine story, well told, and Clara Kimball Young holds her position as one of the best drawing stars, according to reports. Triangle The Last Rebel. — (Five reels) — June 9 — Featuring Belle Bennett. A long-drawn-out story of two generations, with nothing to sustain interest, except atmosphere. The Batesfords and Appersons, southern families, are close friends until the Civil War, when they quarrel bitterly, and Harry Apperson loses his sweetheart, Cora, to his rival, a distantly related Batesford. A generation later Apperson's son comes back from the west, where he has made a fortune with his father, and gets the daughter of his father's sweetheart out of a peck of trouble and goes into a clinch with her at the final closeup. Director, Gilbert P. Hamilton. Cameraman, Jack Mackenzie. General effect — A lot of color, local and otherwise, without much excuse for its being there. Star — Miss Bennett has shown nothing yet to entitle her to stardom, except promise, and she needs better stories. Support — Fine; one of those pictures in which everyone is as good as the leading players. Production — Thorough and well thought out. Photography — Excellent. This won't make much of a hit with playgoers except those who like to take their southern stuff straight. Madame Sphinx. — (Five reels) — June 9 — Featuring Alma Rubens. A good, swift story, with mystery and melodrama. Henri DuBois, a wealthy Parisian, has disinherited his son and made his ward, Celeste, his heir. He is murdered and Celeste finds near his body a cuff button with a curiously carved sphinx on it. She sets out to find the owner of the button and the trail leads to a young artist, whom she finally traps and has arrested, though she has begun to love him. It is discovered that he is the son of DuBois, and Celeste, believing in his innocence, sets out on the trail again, and gets the real criminal. Director, Thomas N. Heffron. Cameraman, C. H. Wales. General effect — A picture that was obviously made by the scenario writer rather than the director or star, so logically and smoothly does it speed along, with its big dramatic scenes, and well-concealed mystery. Star — Alma Rubens gets better all the time, and this is her best work since "I Love You." Support — The customary even excellence of Triangle casts. Production — Thoroughly good. Photography — Excellent. This is a good picture to boost, not by calling it the "sensation of the year" or any of that fool stuff, but as an A-l attraction, clean and full of punch. It is better than eighty per cent of the other pictures of the month. Silver bullion of a quality equal to that used by the United States Mint goes into the manufacture of EASTMAN FILM It may be properly inferred that the demands are rigidly exacting. EASTMAN KODAK CO., ROCHESTER, N. Y. Gets Strange Mark of Favor Edith Storey, Metro star, received a strange token of esteem the other day. She was returning to the Hollywood studio in her limousine from Topanga Canyon, where she had been working on "As the Sun Went Down," when a delegation of little browrn men and women stopped her in a Japanese fishing village. The spokesman announced that they, allies of the honorable and esteemed United States, had a gift for the woman who graced the honorable "movies." The star, delighted, stepped from her car and nodded pleasantly to the deep bows of her Japanese friends. But her pleasure turned to astonishment when she saw three sturdy Japs dragging the "present" along the beach in her direction. It was a three hundred pound tuna, taken from the ocean that morning. Although she didn't know what to do with it, Miss Storey made a great fuss over the gift. She diplomatically asked for a bit of tarpaulin, and had her driver load the finny monster on the front of her car. Thus burdened, the machine proceeded into Los Angeles. But Miss Storey had to give the tuna away because she didn't have an ice-box bisr enough to hold it. Belle Bennett in the Triangle play, "The Last Rebel." Big Sets in "Tempered Steel" "Tempered Steel," the fourth special Petrova production, is marked by a number of unusual stage sets of massive character. The story, written for the Polish star by George Middleton, author of the Broadway play, "Polly With a Past,'' calls for considerable theatrical atmosphere, with several scenes laid in a leading Broadway playhouse. To obtain the exact touch of realism required, Ralph Ince, the director, caused to be erected at the Petrova studio a perfect reproduction of the Belasco Theatre. This setting occupied the entire floor space and on the film shows in detail the stage and boxes.