Picture-Play Magazine (Jul - Dec 1929)

64 Eleanor Boardman, Edmund Burns, and Evelyn Hall contribute a fine moment — one of many — to "She Goes to War." AT this late date comes a war picture unlike any that have gone before. It is called "She Goes to War." For its thrills alone it is worth seeing, but there is a great deal more to it than spectacular episodes on the battlefield. It has an unusual story, for one thing — perhaps a bit too unusual to be easily credited, but its superb presentation makes you believe it while it is under way — and the acting is magnificent. The entire picture is, in fact, done with intelligence that attains inspiration, and it becomes an important film which should be seen by serious moviegoers. Nothing more startling has been seen on the screen than the advance of a fleet of tanks through fields of liquid fire, with men inside the crawling furnaces fighting death by suffocation. Nor has any moment in a recent picture yielded such poignant emotion as is evoked by Alma Rubens mothering a dying soldier as she sings the theme song, "There's a Happy Land," partly through the situation itself, but largely because of Miss Rubens' sad presence. But this is not the crux of the story. That comes when Eleanor Boardman, the heroine, discovers the man she thinks she is in love with, drunk and incapable at the moment his regiment is called to the front. To save him, she dresses in his uniform and marches out with the men. Goaded by their taunts because of her girlishness, she leaves the last trench and crawls across No Man's Land, where she kills a German machine-gun sniper and so wins victory for the regiment. Far-fetched and incredible as this incident is in print, it is gripping on the screen, and is so directed that its implausibility never occurs to the spectator until afterward. Primarily the story is a study of the influence of war on the characters of three persons, a society girl, vain, pampered, her fiance, a rotter never suspected by the girl and never suspected by himself until war brings it out ; and the hero, a garage mechanic, whose social status in the Maryland town back home is nil, but whose conduct at the front reveals him as the logical man for the heroine awakened by her experiences with the actualities of life instead of the equivocations she had always known. Miss Boardman gives a gloriously real and moving performance, equal to her amazing acting in "The Crowd." Edmund Burns is even more of a surprise as the fiance, for he has had no picture to give an inkling of the powers he displays in this one. John Holland, who used to be known as Clifford Holland, is not quite equal to the large demands of the hero's role, but he will come near enough to qualify exceptionally with many fans. Al St. John, Yola d'Avril, Glen Walters, and Eulalie Jensen are significant in lesser roles. No speech is heard in the picture, but incidental sounds and singing keep it from complete silence. Murder in a Studio. For rattling good entertainment my nomination is "The Studio Murder Mystery," a distinct novelty in all-talking pictures, and one which cannot fail to please largely. As you may have guessed, it transpires in a motion-picture studio during the making of a film. There is studio atmosphere galore. In fact, every character, except members of the police, belongs inside the studio and is seen there. There is rapid-fire dialogue, suspense, mystery, and a satisfying solution, to say nothing of interesting characterizations and capital acting on the part of every one. An actor is mysteriously murdered on the set, his body propped in a chair, where it is discovered by an ingenue who thinks she loves him. Whereupon, in the resulting hubbub, the solution of the mystery is begun, the police and a bumptious gag man being rivals in unraveling the crime and at odds with each other most of the time. Five persons are suspected, and suspicion is cleverly pointed at them all. Of course it comes out all right. Neil Hamilton, in the leading role of the gag man, gives a thoroughly engaging and expert performance, not the least of his skill being demonstrated in his mastery of rapid speech without blurring a syllable. More than this, he makes Tony White a real character and garners laughs without number. Fredric March, briefly seen as the murdered actor, is also very fine, and his wife in real life, Florence Eldridge, makes an auspicious debut by means of a perfect voice and a gracious presence. Warner Oland, Doris Hill, Lane Chandler, Eugene Pallette, Chester Conklin, and Gardner James — all are beyond criticism. An Echo of "Chang." There is a reminder of the marvelous "Chang" in "The Four Feathers," as indeed there is good reason to be, for the team of camera men responsible for the epic of the Siamese jungle journeyed to the Sudan for certain scenes which later inspired the production of the picture in Hollywood. So cleverly have the studio scenes surrounded those episodes which could only have been photographed in the jungle, that technically the new