Moving Picture World (Nov-Dec 1927)

December 17, 1927 23 Through Box Office Windows Looking at the week’s showings with both eyes on the ticket selling angles Private Life of Helen of Troy Box-Office Tongues Will Wag When “LowDown” on Ancient Scandal Hits Public Richard A. Rowland Presents “The Private Life of Helen of Troy” with Lewis Stone and Maria Corda Directed by Alexander Korda A First National Picture THE CAST George Fawcett Ulysses Tom O’Brien Ajax Malapokitoratoreadetos Charles Puffy Length : 7,694 feet. Queen Helen of Troy, piqued by her husband’s lack of interest in her, elopes with Paris to Sparta. Menelaus, her husband, egged on by his henchman, starts a war with Paris, finally effecting the return of Helen. The time-honored custom demands that he have the pleasure of killing her, but her seductive loveliness restrains him. And so at the end of the story, we find Helen engaging in a new flirtation with the Prince of Ithaca. A COUPLE of adept title-writers had a perfectly gorgeous time surrounding this new version of an ancient epic with modern “nifties,” with the result that broad, unpretentious humor ripples, seeps, and in some places cascades out of “The Private Life of Helen of Troy.” That the film in no exact way parallels the essential theme of Professor Erskine’s popular book, will be a minor incident in its fortunes, for, as the film stands now, it has plenty of box-office “It” on which to get along. A new face to American picture goers usurps the one that once launched a thousand wooden ships, and if one knows his hoi polloi at all, Miss Corda’s will knock ’em for a whole fleet of armored cruisers. Give this “big” girl a hand. No actress was ever more ideally cast for a role. The basic structure of the film’s success lies in that fact. Titles, as already suggested, play an important part in the handling of the play. A “Connecticut Yankee” sort of formula, in which colloquialisms of our modern day are sprinkled with sprightly abandon over scenes redolent of the classic glory that was Greece, make for a diverting combination that adds zest and keenness to the story. Broad, goodnatured satire on the frailities of life in general and the vicissitudes of ignored wives in particular, is treated with an eye to amuse the multitude. No need to go into a vivid description of backgrounds. These are of 22 karat calibre, on magnificent lines, of voluptuous sweep. Lovely tableaux of diaphanous creatures wafting gossamer garments to the night wind; stalwarts in coats of mail; a mammoth horse dwarfing an entire army into crawling atoms — spectacles of this kind constantly add pictorial glamor to the plot. Oh, yes, then there’s this King fellow, Menelaos; Lewis Stone takes this part, which sounds like a breakfast food, and pours a rich cream of interpretation over it so that it emerges a dish to tempt the palate of a dyspeptic. Stone’s performance of the yawning, snoring Tired Business Potentate is a substantial pivot on which the fun revolves. Ricardo Cortez doesn’t have to do much to realize the gifted Paris, but he does this well. George Fawcett contributes his familiar twinkle and leathery features to advantage. But after all is said you come back to Marie Corda, and when you do, you come back for more. “The Private Life of Helen of Troy” should be a public delight. — MIKE. Man, Woman and Sin John Gilbert Again Hits the Box Office Bell in Hot Tilt Over Seductive Siren PUT a shiek in a goof’s clothing, and he’s still a shiek, regardless of a rubber collar, lack of a shave, or a hooligan’s haircut. And so, once again, John Gilbert, though given the role of a lowly, poor-born atom in the social scale, shows that he’s born to the purple as a virile magnet of attraction to the fair sex. The director, Monta Bell — he wrote the story, too — had his job cut out for him in guiding his two lovers through the maze of their emotional eruptions, for the least padding here, or the merest off-shade there, would have resulted in extracting the sauce of plausibility from the seasoning. As it is, he has done his work with rare discrimina tion and uncompromising adherence to the main point of his story. What results is an illuminating cross-section of an episode in a young man’s life, which should experience little trouble in satisfying motion picture customers. Jeanne Eagles, as the lady in the case, reveals the talents which have brought her fame on the stage. She is ideally cast in this role, and if the proper story can be secured to star her on her own, watch out for a knock-out in film fare. Much interest, especially among the women, was evidenced at her appearance. The film borders slightly on the lushly sentimental in the early scenes, but once the transition is made of the hero grown from boyhood into a full-fledged man, it travels quickly and surely to an absorbing conclusion. It will be a sin not to book “Man, Woman and Sin.” — MIKE. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Presents John Gilbert and Jeanne Eagles in “MAN, WOMAN AND SIN” Directed by Monta Bell THE CAST: A1 Whitcomb John Gilbert Vera Worth Jeanne Eagles Mrs. Whitcomb ..........Gladys Brockwell Bancroft Marc McDermott Length, 6,280 Feet A1 Whitcomb, who since childhood, knows only the seamy sides of life, gets a job as cub reporter on a paper. On this job he becomes infatuated with Vera Worth, society editor, who is mistress of Bancroft, the paper’s owner. In a battle with latter over Vera, A1 kills him. He is to be hanged for the crime, when Vera finally gives testimony which saves him.