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JANUARY 1924
Picture s and Picture pver
breathless from scene to scene, shaking out glimpses of beauty at every nun of this merry harlequinade. Whether Robin Hood is correct t<> history • »r not matters nothing at all. But whether or not you believe that Richard
the l.ionliearted really did behave with
the bluff vulgarity that Wallace Beery
attributes to him, whether you believe
in Sam de Grasse's villainous Prince John, or in the highly colourful Right: The sleep walker carries off the
heroine in " Caligari,"
Above : The cell scene, with its painted beams of light in " Caligari."
Crusades of Allan Dwan's imagining, you will at least own that they fall into the pattern of the legendary pantomime with flawless accuracy.
There are three things that, purely from the point of view of production, make Robin Hood an outstanding film — the massive sets that give you an illusion of breadth, height, solidity and medieval mystery, the faultless use of lights and shadows that throws the architectural beauty into high relief, and the straightforward continuity that carries the story swiftly forward from start to finish without one backward glance.
There is hardly a scene in the film that does not merit special mention. Certain it is that children — from six to sixty — will revel in such delights as the tilting, the quarterstaff play, and the final jolly chorus on the battlements of Nottingham Castle while John and his men are left disconsolate beyond the moat. For a picture that affords one hundred per cent, of sheer entertainment and enjoyment the Pict.urcgoer Critic awards Robin Hood the palm.
Above: The climax of "Robin Hood."
Right : Douglas Fairbanks as " The Earl
of Huntingdon."
Beside masterpieces such as the above, George Melford's Java Head looks a little pale. It is an unassuming film with many flaws in construction, but for its fidelity to the spirit of the Hergesheimer original and for the acting of Lcatrice Joy and Raymond Hatton it must be given a place in our Honours List. Hergesheimer's exquisite Manchu lady is a very difficult figure for any Westerner to reproduce, but Leatrice Joy has that subtle mingling of the child and the mystic that creates and maintains the right atmosphere from the start. The part could not have been in better hands. As for Raymond Hatton, his character studies are already becoming one of the traditions of the screen. His study of the drug-sodden " Edward Dunsack " Java Head should have pride of place in his portrait gallery.
The Picturegoer Critic.