The Photo-Play Journal (Jul 1919-Feb 1921)

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40 Photo-Play Journal THE ROMANTIC ADVENTURESS (Paramount) Again Dorothy Dalton has a vehicle which is of the movies movie. A cast which works hard, settings which are often extravagant, are lost in a . miserable and obvious story which never holds the interest. The plot is developed on the ancient theme of the scheming mother who attempts to marry off her talented daughter to a wealthy roue ; her plans are foiled, of course, and the heroine virtuously marries the poorest man in sight. Dorothy Dalton is herself. Charles Meredith leaves nothing to be desired as the poor captain of the Yale eleven. The settings are often very beautiful. MADAME PEACOCK (Metro) According to authoritative reports, this picture required but eighteen days, five hours and thirteen minutes of actual studio work, just thirteen minutes too long. In those thirteen minutes some of the most atrocious double exposures ever exposed to the public eye were taken. They spoil a perfectly legitimate ending to a good picture, for Nazimova has daringly made fun of the star of the stage and the movies in this story of theatrical life. In addition to playing two parts, directing, and cutting, Nazimova emotes all over the screen. She gives two fairly convincing character studies, occasionally overdoing the little matter of posturing, but holding the interest with few lapses. Madame Peacock would have been a good picture if Nazimova had not tried to do too much. THE BAIT (Maurice Tourneur) This is Hope Hampton's second picture and it shows a remarkable improvement over her first, "A Modern Salome." Miss Hampton was daring enough to try to star in the first picture in which she appeared. She has learned rapidly, however, and "The Bait" is a picture with an unusual plot, excellent settings and good photography. Direction is not always up to the present standard and Miss Hampton is occasionally guilty of lapses. There is no doubt, however, that she is earnestly endeavoring to create a name for herself as a sincere actress. "The Bait" is far better than many a picture in which an established star plays through a tiresome story for program purposes. BURGLAR PROOF (Paramount) Bryant Washburn has a merry little comedy in this story of a hard-boiled egg who is finally induced to spend some money on a vamping little dancing instructress. The subtitles of "Burglar Proof" are among the best seen this year, credit going to Tom Geraghty. Mr. Washburn plays with his usual breeziness. Lois Wilson makes an attractive heroine. THE LITTLEST REBEL (Paramount) Bolshevism and a grand duchess incognito : thus, "The Littlest Rebel." It has Dorothy Gish for a star, and Dorothy is thoroughly in her element. She has everything to do from the dignity of a court ball to the informality of an arm-chair lunch-room waitress, and she appropriately sticks up the Red villians with a stupendous sword as the last reel flickers on. This is an entertaining comedy-drama with plenty of action. THE JAILBIRD (Paramount) Douglas MacLean takes all his little old tricks out of his pocket in this typically Satevepost story. He politely vanishes from jail, arrives in a Kansas hick town and sets the hicks afire with several get-rich-quick stunts. A laugh picture that won't make you think or laugh too much. THE CRADLE OF COURAGE (Paramount) Lloyd Hughes has directed this Bill Hart feature in which the honorable Bill abandons his bandanna and his sombrero and puts on soldier's uniform, then civies and finally the accoutrements of an honest-to-goodness "cop." This picture does not compare with "Sand" or "The Toll Gate." There is too much of the obvious in it, and the practiced picture-goer will be able to figure out the evolutions of the plot without much effort. Furthermore, the thoroughly dramatic situations which crop up occasionally in the course of the film are spoiled utterly by Hart's inability to get to his audiences the emotions he is supposed to be registering. Hart has no more than two or three variations to the inflexible stolidity which he has used so often in his bad men characters. He closes his eyes to register everything from hate to adoration and swallows hard to indicate both thirst and grief. Bill Hart belongs in the two-gun, hard-hitting, lickety-split outlaw picture, the rum-joint and the robber camp. But as lover, as reformed crook, as prodigal son, he is out of place. On horse-back. Bill is the greatest ever ; in a parlor you always feel as though he were going to tip over the victrola or knock the family portrait album into the cuspidor. Ann Little kisses Bill in this picture ; Bill looks shocked. Ann retains her demure sophistication. And this reviewer closed his eyes and kept them closed until Bill drew his trusty 45 and plugged the villain in the slats. THE RIGHT TO LOVE (Paramount) The province of the ultra high life drama of Paris has been invaded definitely by George Fitzmaurice in this adaptation of Paul Fougere's "L'Homme qui Assassina," transplanted to English soil and thence to the Bosphorus with an American hero and a British villain. Mae Murray and David Powell again do their "On With the Dance" performance, and there are highly artistic shots, magnificent settings and extremely modish, not to say mediaeval, neckless and skirtless costumes worn by the star. And there is drama, big splotches of it, spread all over the screen — I was going to say canvas — for Fitzmaurice is artist first and dramatic producer second. The neglected wife, the other woman invading the sanctity of the home, the child torn from its mother's breast, the old love from America, and finally the man who kills and yet keeps his hands clean : all these making up the series of thrills which are this picture. It is decidedly one of the unusual pictures of the season, but hardly great. LADY ROSE'S DAUGHTER (Paramount) Dear Mrs. Humphrey Ward was quite the thing, you know, in the nineties. So was Oscar Wilde, the Savoyards, Audrey Beardsley, bicycles and horseless carriages, not to mention Tennyson and the Century Magazine. Dear Mrs. Ward wrote many novels, and this, "Lady Rose's Daughter," was one of them. The heroine suffers turribly because of the misconduct of her mother ; she earns a living as a sempstress, the finality of suffering for one in whose veins flows the blue blood of British nobility. And she suffers still more when she accepts the protection necessary to any virtuous maiden of the nineties, the sheltering portal of the aristocratic home of an aristocratic old aunt who aristocrats all over the place for the remaining four reels. Elsie Ferguson plays the three roles of grandmother, mother and heroine in the three episodes of the story. And she has a turrible time when she falls in love with the wrong man and is cast out by the aristocratic aunt, who represents British nobility as it was in the nineties, according to Mrs. Ward. Burns Mantle wrote the scenario and did a satisfactory job, and Miss Ferguson is as charming a young lady as ever. THE GREAT REDEEMER (Metro) "The Great Redeemer" is a picture which is different, and although it has many faults, it is in some respects decidedly out of the ordinary. Directed by Clarence Brown under the supervision of Maurice Tourneur, it appears to have benefited from some of the attention bestowed upon it by Mr. Tourneur, especially in the lighting and settings. The story, that of a western bad man who is imprisoned and who saves a fellow convict's soul by a miraculous painting, is at times inspiring, at other times boresome, when not absurd. Indeed, the thread of the play is so uneven that occasionally it becomes frayed through to the breaking point. The titles, too, are rather trite and there are not a few inconsistencies in the direction. Nevertheless, "The Great Redeemer" has a place above and beyond that of the ordinary feature. H. H. Van Loan wrote the story, supposedly from an actual occurrence in a Mexican prison. House Peters plays the hero adequately and Majorie Daw is a pleasing heroine. The acting honors are carried off. however, by Joseph Singleton, who gives a remarkable picture of the murderer. THE RESTLESS SEX (Cosmopolitan) "The Restless Sex" is a Robert W. Chambers story and a Marion Davies screen vehicle, which means that it is a superficial society drama in which beauty is the requirement of the star and not dramatic ability. The picture has been staged sumptuously and merits commendation for the sets designed by Joseph Urban. The direction, however, is hardly capable, for the picture drags and never has any sustained interest. Miss Davies is as imperturbable as ever and Carlyle Blackwell, who plays a rather diluted heavy role, is mournful rather than sympathetic, as the story demands. Ralph Kellard, as the leading man, is satisfactory. "The Restless Sex" disappoints. A CHORUS GIRL'S ROMANCE (Metro) There are no tremendous sets in "A Chorus Girl's Romance," and the story is not so startlinglv original that it will create more than ripples on the ocean of fandom, but Metro and Viola Dana have succeeded in producing a photoplay that is both amusing and entertaining at all times. The tale is of a low-brow chorus girl and a high-brow lover, and it ends with the girl earning money by writing light fiction while her college trained husband goes to the vaudeville stage as an acrobat to contribute his earnings to the family coffers. The titles are clever and often funny ; the picture has been directed smoothly and never lags. It should be popular wherever shown. VOICES (Independent Release) Candles are to be found these days only in Greenwich Village and stage coaches are mouldering in museums, but musty, impossible pictures still grace the so-called silver screen. And when they are seen by this reviewer, they make him temporarily align himself with those critics of the movies who call the film art clap-trap, hokum and pap. "Voices," directed by Chester de Vonde, is intended to be a topical picture, based on the supposed popular interest in spiritualism. The theme is big enough for a D. W. Griffith, but that did not dismay Chester de Vonde. He assembled a company of actors, he had a studio, a camera and a set of lights which must have been in bad condition, and he tackled the job of interpreting not only some of the more interesting phases of life in the other world, but some of the fundamentals of this life, with nothing but a script and his own good judgment, if any, to guide him. Into the pot of hashy balderdash went a dead mother who appears to her living son (Continued on page 62)