Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1916)

The Shadow Stage I semi slavery through the civic courts to the marriage market, where she is released by an impress from the roll seal Belshazzar lias strapped upon his wrist, rhereafter sto to the death, u sweet Amazon in the service of Iht great Sar. The camp of Cyrus, with the ••Institution" of the Meiles and Persians, is as instructive as a West Asiatic history, fhe attack upon Babylon, with its terrible towers, its demoniac ••tank" of i '-reek fire Earning prophecy ot" the Somme jug lauts! — its ferocious personal encounters, is unparalleled in battle spectacles. Hehold the vivid though perhaps dubious realism of gushy closeups on sword-thrusts. Heads literally fly off above shearing swords, hot lead sears, rocks crush, arrows pierce horridly — and withal there is the unconquerable animation and fury of ultimate conflict. Otherwheres, the sensuous glory of the Chaldean court. N brush-master has painted more < Oriental splendors than those boasted by the golden bungalow of X abonidus, quaint father of the virile voluptuary, Belshazzar. Beauty blooms in wildest luxuriance in this New York of the Euphrates. The dances of Tammuz, god of springtime, flash forth in breath-taking nudity and rhythm as frank as meaningful. They are flashes, only ; that is why they remain in the picture. One cannot imagine a more beautiful thing than Seena Owen as Attarea — veritable star of the Fast. The tiny battle-chariot with its cargo of a great white rose, drawn down the table to Attarea's Belshazzar by two white doves,' chances to remain the only untouched thing in the palace of death which Cyrus enters. There is pathos ! Tully Mar ^n ill «* #3 ^^£7*®WZStl^~ry\<&/^i Of Intolerance: {reading doivn) Constance Talmadge as "The Mountain Girl," Mae Marsh in the modern episode, Josephine Croivell as Catherine de Medici. shall as the High l'ricst of Bel, Elmer Clifton as the Rhapsode, George Siegmann as CyrUS three pl.iwis who .ire especially redoubtable. The magical I >avid pounds his points lmine by contrast. from the solemn grandeur ol [shtar's high altar, with its costly burnt offering of pro pitiation, he flashes to an a w idow offering her all to the same deity three turnips and .1 . arrot, covered with a little oil. The France which our filmetcher rears for the massacre of St. Bartholomew is as fine a France as Stanley Weyman pictured in words. Griffith spares neither exactness nor feeling. With delicate touches he builds up keen interest in the home of Brown Kyes — then slaughters the whole family. Wonderful characters here are Josephine Crowell's Catherine de Medici ; and Charles IX, as played by Frank Bennett. Much has been taken from the Judean scenes, but so much remains to hail as optic poetry that the loss is negligible. I can think of nothing finer in the handling of light, nor in the massing and moving of figures, than the "marriage in Cana." More education ! The complete wedding rite, with its odd observances according to Hebrew tradition, is a transcription from Minor Asia such as one cannot find outside the pages of Josephus. Stirringly dramatic, yet faithful to the letter of the gospels, is the scene in which Jesus faces those who would stone the woman taken in adultery. There is a scene of The Christ laughing, conversing, supping, interchanging views — a man among men. And there is the Via Dolorosa. The modern storv is, among