Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1916)

84 Photoplay Magazine success as a comedian. In fact, his recent revival of his father's tumultuous triumph, Dundreary, proved that the sparkle and spatter of mirth are still in his soul. It has been his mission to bring love or laughter into the theater, and he has brought both abundantly , We had never suspected that he would be a success impersonating the side of a warehouse, the bars of a bank or the plane surface of a shop counter. And — speaking from the comparative standpoint of his great accomplishments — he isn't. I imagine that one who had not seen Sothern at all, nor had ever heard of him, would find him, in "The Chattel," as satisfactory as most of the actors who have played these thundering Klein magnates. Miss Peggy H viand, who looks like an impression of country England in Springtime, plays one Leila Bard, a pretty thing bought as a chattel by Kaiser Sothern — in the play, Blake Waring. The story ends happily. The chattel is transformed into the wife, and in the transformation there are moments when Sothern manages to strike a romantic note in spite of conventional tailoring, a stiff collar, scant hair and many undeniable portents of personal autumn. The production is in spots amazingly shoddy. Here we are, in the domestic surroundings of a Twentieth-Century Croesus— there is much lumber and impedimenta, but little constructive style, and none of the arts of architecture, furnishing, comfort or charm with which so weighty a man would have invested the golden cage of his maiden-bird. What environment and real directoral cleverness can do to make up not only the flaws of an incredible story but a lack of impressive acting is revealed by Ralph I nee in "His Wife's Good Name," a play by Josephine Lovett. Here we have a young collegian who, by nearly falling out of his bathroom window, can flirt successfully with a doveling who. to consummate the acquaintance, almost falls out of a window of her own. The lad marries the lassie, and the twain are set upon by the most amazing paternal conspiracy ever put over on stage of sun or electricity. The bridegroom's father employs a gunman to frame an improper party as "a friend of her husband." and to this orgiastic celebration the son is conducted by his duping father. Of course the boy believes everything his old man tells or shows him. The pathetic dame is resuscitated from a selfimposed gas attack, husband returns, and father is forgiven — all in a perfectlv impossible way. Now the one thing that makes this photoplay observable at all is in the line manner in which Ralph I nee has handled evcrv incident, getting 100 per cent humanity wherever humanity is possible, and equipping the various scenes with material surroundings which are positively lifelike. Miss Lucille Lee. as the misadventurous bride, Mary Ellen, has not sufficient personality to stand the test in big emotional scenes. J 01 S WEBER has done it again in "Idle •*— ' Wives," a piece that is rather chaotic in spots — idle wives disappear, anon, and much sociology and philosophizing take their places — but. everything considered, it is a splendid parallel study of a rich man's wife who goes among the poor to find the love she cannot get in her own home, and of a tragic young girl who meets disaster not while going to the traditional devil, but to the light, laughter and forgetfulness which she cannot get in the unhomey bunk of her failure-progenitors. Technically, "Idle Wives" is a stunt, too. for it has a double story : the story of a whole community of dissatisfied husbands, wives, sweethearts and parents who see a reflection of themselves on the screen of a motion picture theater. Using the stage as an incident, using the stage to show a stage, is the oldest of tricks; getting the screen to storyize itself is only a slight variation, but it is new. One of the most interesting features of this production is Miss Weber's own appearance as the unappreciated wife of wealth. Her grace, her poise, her surety. and above all. her great charm, make her the most astonishing of author-actors, male or female. Who else is there — save possibly Leo Ditrichstein. of the articulate stage — who can so successfully vivify a piece of personal imagination? Mary MacLaren, Lois 'Weber's living emotion-statue, plays the girl who gets into trouble, but who. somehow, doesn't seem to oldfashionedly "go wrong." As usual, she is a living reflection of her director's thoughts.