Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1919)

Photoplay Magazine «S and the only thing that I missed — memories of the halcyon dr.vs of WiUiam Gilleile! — was the agonizing silence in that ,Taph office, with only the clicking of a soumlir to N the passage of an episode so dramatic that one fairly >.ted shrieks and deafening explosions. A perfect cast, ■-he best directing that Hugh Ford has ever done in his long rial service. The familiar plot does not need recounting .1 mention of the cast will recall to even* playgoers mind t-nts of the staunch old melodrama which, somehow, is .\merican with scarcely a tinge of sectional partisan >iajor Warwick plays the dual role of Major Dumom and ain Thome, C. S. A. Theodore Roberts plays llcneral !olph. Howard and Wilfred \amey are played, respec y, by Raymond Hat ion and Casson Ferguson. Robert L" gives the most sympathetic single performance of the , as Henr> Dumont. lr\ing Cummings depicts the suave, \ Benton Arrelsford. of the Confederate Secret Service. la Hawley is Edith, the little Virginienne, and Eilythc iman depicts her mother. Somehow, the camera is less to Major Wanvick than it has ever been, but his perform is manly, forceful, and full of a reserve of pow=er. YANKEE DOODLE IN BERLIN— Sennott Whether Sennettrj becomes a little waterj strung out to five 1> J reels, or whether there is too much fooling and too little I leave for soberer diagnosticians than I to decide. 1 am "\ in such a carnival of yelps at one of Mack's mani ~ that I forget all analysis. And yet this picture, full of the regular hokum, disappointed me. I won't e stock line that it needed a story; I'll say instead that ; a little common-sense attention to detail, and a little coarseness in one particular. This is a war-time hokus on the HohenzoUerns, but without delving more than ;) into monarchical affairs and Potsdam facts, the r> certainly might have honored our intelligences more . sacrificing not a bit of their travesty. It is a high crime u, vompare comedians' efforts, I know, but I cannot but rememkr that when Mr. Chaplin felt called upon to say something ?*^'it the war he chose that ver> ticklish subject, the Amerdoughboy. and. for the purposes of his masque, perfected raphrase of camouflage that startled even the scientific. :e is no such artistr\ shown here, there is exhibited no will ally take off in laughter really true things; the whole thing ;n as tiisue paper and superficial as a yellow-journal headThe only two performances of note are Bolhwell Browne's creditable and inoffensive female imjjersonation, and harddng Ford Sterling's replica of a well but not favorably n sojourner in Amerongen. Mr. Browne enacts an Ameraviator detailed to secure important information in Berlin. :'.ies to the enemy's countr>'. and, remembering "his college ■-.; . ^ ' — of course that was the easiest of the old ones to pull — dons a damsel's garb, and tricks successively Hans und Fritz. •^ r officers, the generals, the string-bean Kronprinz, and Gott's .er. Wilhelm II. I regret that into his fantastic fracas the jj.-i maker felt obliged to pull a georgemunroeish burlesque of the German empress; not that I am for the empress, but vul-' acrobacy by a gray-haired woman does not strike me in event as funny or necessar>'. There is so much eise that i;t (.ould have done. In no place does the sketch rise to anything that compliments the intelligence of the beholder, as did "hrow your eggs at the reviewer now, please — Mr. Chaplin's ulder .\rms." Of course this affair was never intended peace-times. It was a catchpenny stirabout for war days. Sennett Follies bring their frolicking legs across the screen I anon, and Marie Prevost plays something that faintly re>les a part now and then. With what nature has done we no complaint; nor with what Mr. Browne and Mr. Sterling done, but the rest will add nothing to comedy history nor any converts to the screen OITCASTS OF POKER FLAT— Uoiver.al This deep. vi\-id annal of reality by Bret Harte has long ■waited screen portrayal. It gets it. and gets it magnificently. xplainable minor defects, at the hands of i n directed by Jack Ford. You remember Uutcaiii was a real tragedy, do you not? The Gam -. and the boy he adopted and cherished, and the girl who lo'.ed him and whom he endeavored with all his power to force into a love for the boy, the Gambler's deliberate alienation of "The Bishop's Emeralds" marks the return of Virj^inia Pearson, in a melodroina reminiscent of a Drury Lane thriller. Universal has given Bret Ilarte's story, "Outcasts of Poker Flat", the screen portrayal it has long awaited. "Thr lAtnr St.ir liaiiftrr" i» a sonn-wliat ronvrntionol Wrstrrn •(ory by Zanc Grry, headed by William I' aroum.