Moving Picture World (Jan-Mar 1912)

376 THE MOVING PICTURE WORLD The Pleasing and the Unpleasing. By C. H. Claudy. BIOGRAPH'S "The Failure" is a new treatment of an old theme, redeemed from sordidness by the character of the acting, and the daintiness of some of the titles, together .with its happy ending. Yet it is a question if any picture which deals with vice in any form, to the extent of showing it on the screen, is really necessary or advisable in the making of films for public entertainment. The "Failure" is a man who fails — his first beloved tells him he must succeed before she can marry him, and he does try, but fails again. Meanwhile "The woman down the Sorrowful Hill" (my compliments to the maker of that title) has been deserted by her lover, and has recourse only to the dance hall — not to mince words, becomes a prostitute. The "Failure," in a brave attempt to make good, either sings or recites in the dance hall, to the applause of the half-drunken multitude, and what he says or sings attracts the attention of "The Woman Down the Sorrowful Hill," who, too short a time in a life of shame to have become hardened, is sorry for his depth of misery, and is very prettily and artistically shown comforting him; indeed, he finally falls asleep in her arms, sitting by a table in a private room in the dance-hall house, and she holds him the night through. His good fortune comes in a letter from a relative who oflfers him management and part ownership of a farm, if he will come and bring a wife. He is impoverished, but the girl pawns her jewels and oflfers him the money. This he spurns, so she gets the dance-hall keeper to give it to him by a ruse. How she knew just where he lived and could get there so quickly is not well shown — indeed, the action is a bit jerky in several places, but one forgives it for the sake of the interest, which is well sustained. Meanwhile, with the money which he, inconsistently enough, would take from the keeper of a house of very questionable repute, though he scorned it from an inmate of that house, he prepares to go to the farm. He goes to the house of the girl he loves, sees her through the window in the arms of another man, returns and takes "The Woman Down the Sorrowful Hill" as his wife, and the final scene shows them both following the plough in honest labor, he at work, she cheering him on. Pope Innocent III at the beginning of the 13th century pronounced it a praiseworthy act to marry a prostitute, and Gregory the Ninth urged bachelors to marry repentant girls, so perhaps there is some classic reason for a drama of this kind. Nevertheless, well done as it is, and gripping of the attention, one cannot help wishing that some more cheerful form of entertainment might be oflfered, and that Biograph, which we look to for the very best in photoplays, would not be original at the expense of the innocence of the very young who attend motion picture houses. One hardly wishes for the reputation of being a prude, but one is willing to risk the suggestion that such themes are better off the film-stage than on it, for the sake of the young and susceptible patrons of the shows. If Biograph has a new treatment of an old theme, Selig has an old treatment of an old theme in "The Chief's Daughter." One expects more originality from the producers of some of the most stunning pictures ever made — "Lost in the Jungle," for instance, and "Back to the Primitive." But here we have something which is so old it can't stand without a crutch — captured maidens, Indian maiden rescues, escape under the back of the teppe, well guarded in front. I suppose if I have seen that same idea once, I have gaped at it twenty times — yet, like the clown of blessed memory "Here we are again!" * * Vitagraph's "One Touch of Nature" failed, as far as I was concerned, because of the fatal departure from truth in the appearance of the caste. You can't make Miss Turner look like a Jewess by giving her a Jewish name, and you can't get conviction by over-make up, as in the case of the Jewish girl's father. There seems to be somewhat of a tendency to over-make up among the Vitagraph men — notice the hypnotist in "Hypnotizing the Hypnotist" who was a caricature even for a burlesque — that would have been a • stronger face without so much hair! However, long whiskers on the Jew's face wouldn't spoil the play — but Miss Turner does not look like a Jewess, and to have her play a part in which the matter of race is the basic fact is to start out with lack of success a preconceived condition. And not all her faithful acting nor the capital strength of the other characters could convince the audience that it was life they looked at — it was Gentile playing at Jew and you couldn't make anything else out of it — so that a very pretty idea for a play was spoiled in the telling. I wish I had some way of handing the Gaumont procer a small bunch of flowers. But I commend his effoiijn "Heroism" to many an American producer as to the pijer way to get realism by juggling films. I have been a pijre "fan" for a long time, and I believe I know a good ji^le when I see it — and I never saw a better than this, in vich pictures of a fire — a real, sure-enough fire, with real cri(Js and real engines, are so cleverly mixed and blended iith the "pretend" fire in the studio where the pictures ire made, that the eflfect is all that of reality. The artistic'ay in which hair-raising scenes are cut short and a new th|ler substituted, too, instead of working each scene to the iiit, is very pleasing. Incidentally, while a man dying is it j pleasant thing to watch either in reality or on the staii if one could always watch a realistic and true-to-life cith scene as that given by the heroic rescuer, one would oect less to such portraits when they are necessary. "If this be comedy, then let me cry!" I forgot who said it, but he might have been lookii at Essanay's "The First Man," which is 1,000 feet lonjbecause 1,000 feet makes a full reel — and for no other re on. If it had been 400 feet it would have been, probably, f ny. As it is, it's so far between laughs, and so little is ide of the one really laughable possibility — that of a?irl eighteen years old in the presence of the first man shever saw or spoke to — that the whole thing falls flat. Iver having seen such a young woman, one hardly knows ho\she would act, but it seems reasonably certain she wouldn act as if she saw a man every day! _ | And I am not crazy about "A Frontier Doctor" e^aer, for the simple reason that I don't like his methods! ;f I ever had the bad luck to be a producer, I think I s\n\i\ hire a medical man to tell me what I shouldn't do in a ' Doctors who operate on damaged heads don't sit 0 bed and lean over their patient — they get behind the > r so they can move around them. And they don't ojl-ate alone, when a loving wife is crazy with anxiety in the'"-'' room. — nor they don't go to work in two minutes after called as if they were about to shave their patient, c But Miss Fisher is worth seeing here, as elsewhere -she grows on you the more you see her. * * Edison's "Buckskin Jack, the Earl of Glenmore," • ruthlessly through improbabilities and arrives on the of action willy nilly. And to thunder with the impoties, anyway! For Buckskin Jack is restrained in his acjji^ capable in his repression and a rather fine figure of suat in his work, and we like him much, and we don't mincsaying so, either — any more than his wards did in the jttlf play. The scene between Jack and the butler, whu h( shows Jack wherein he has ofifened, and why his maiers were out of gear, is excellent, indeed, and the clubooni scene, where Jack uncovers a cheat is so well playecthal the melodrama is forgotten in the apparent reality. * * C. G. P. C. has something in Eva's Faithful Fur tun which is seldom attempted on this side of the ocean — jlricl film which is designed to show it wasn't a trick. We :s al more or less familiar with that class of picture in whi in animate objects suddenly come to life, tables set themsves pianos move from room to room without the aid of Imai hands, etc., and it must be confessed, such films usual ge more of a laugh from the audience than the average jom edy" which is so seldom really funny! In this par ' '' example, Eva, dispossessed, prays to her furniture i desert her, whereupon it promptly follows her back th the streets of the town madly chased by the asto bailiffs. The film shows the furniture moving, and at the time, people chasing it and being chased by it, which i ingeniously accomplished. The effect is very surprisin comments of some "wise" picture fans who see it ai unable to explain it being almost as funny as the aiiis the furniture itself. [ie< f WANTS THREE POSTERS WITH 3-REEL SXTBJECTS. Editor Woving Picture World: Dear Sir :--J list a line or two about two and three-reel plcturef[3 recently run some of them and find that many people refuse to com Id bt cause there Is only one poster for the two or tbree-reeled plctun The Beem to think because tbere 1b only on poster, that you are not givl tliei as long a show as usual. Don't you think It would be an improvement to have a poster fBf reel? Can't something be done about this, as I, for one, will not o >n more three-reel subjects unless there Is a poster for each reel, and 'i •"'' that other managers find It the same, that is, in regard to people Inki" you are giving them "short weight." Your paper is Invaluable, but seems to be always Improving, thou f«'^ one seems perfect, to me, at least. E. L. TEWSLEY, Empress teatci Redlands, Cal.