Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1916)

The Shadow Stage 85 broken, the soldier slowly begins to hale the stripes and stars, and, in the end, sells out to one Pancho Zapilla, a thinly dis guised Villa-character just across the border. How even recognition by his old commander in the Philippines fails to retrieve hint from intended treachery and how he is rewon to manhood and honor by the faith o( a lonely little boy like his own lost child fills up the whirlwind final reel. Here is a story of power and suspense, brimming with realisms which might be called newspaperisms, quite sufficient in sentiment though entirely devoid of sex interest. William S. Hart plays Bob Wiley as no one else could, and little George Stone is so touching as the forlorn and fated child that the man who can wateh his reflected impersonation dry-eyed may be suspicioned a defective. When Bob Wiley, returning from his fruitless trip to Washington, paused to buy a big wooden duck for the little fellow oi whose death he could not know, I found that my Adam's apple was about the size of an ostrich egg. 1 OUIS JOSEPH VANCE'S novel. *-' "Joan Thursday." rather stupidly renamed "The Footlights of Fate," suffices to reintroduce Marc McDermott in big plays. Singular are the portions of an artist. \b Dermott is one of the finest, subtlest character makers the silver sheet has ever revealed. In the force and spirituality of his best parts only Henry Walthall has approached him. Yet, like Mary Fuller, the past two years have found him empty of achievement. In his case, it appears to have been wholly due to surroundings. He has not been often put in the way of good stories, or with directors of sufficient calibre to exploit him. "The Footlights of Fate" begins as a piece worthy of the best Vitagraph tradition — but it ends tawdrily, spoiled rather in direction than in story — in we accept some Hat moments and an anin spired finish on the pan oi the author. Naomi didders is seen with Mr. McDermott. and though "The Footlights of Fate" as a whole disappoints, then Several ready splendid scenes lilleb evolved by the dramatist, siiperlilv handled by tlie director, magnificent!} performed by Mr. McDermott and Miss Childers. PRIANGLE still serins to be a triangle, though two of its sides are badlj sprung. [nee alone is holding up the full productive repute of this three-way play maker. Beside "The Patriot." luce's Culver City crucible has given forth half a dozen recent vehicles which are out of the ordinary. Among these is "The Wolf Woman," a vampire piece morbid in plot but startling in its climaxes and brilliant in acting and staging. Louise Glaum is the cankerous female, of course, and Charles Ray and Howard Hickman are her masculine setting. "The Jungle Child" exhibits Hickman and Dalton. It is a novelty, though not much of a drama. "Home," with Bessie Barriscale, is a solid, entertaining comedy of city life. "Lieut. Danny, U. S. A.," presents William Desmond and Enid Markey. A pair of unusual plays are "The Dawnmaker," with Helen Holmes, in a scene from "The Diamond Runners. "