Picture-Play Magazine (Sep 1920 - Feb 1921)

58 The Screen in Review "The Figurehead" is quite the best picture Eugene O'Brien has made with Selzmck — he has always wanted to do a story of this type. niest of the picture, but in saying this I immediately lay myself open to more differences of opinion. Some people will like the football-game scene in which Ben Turpin is introduced with his head buried in the dirt. Others will point to the hilarious comedy thrills of the airplane scenes, .and others the bits in which Ben is seen inflated with illuminating gas and floating through the corridors of a hospital. But the play scenes have the advantage of another set of unlisually j clever subtitles. These . are in the way of comments :from Ford Sterling, .who' sits/in the front row of the audience. The remarks are of the "kidding" kind, and Sterling certainly "kids" the life out of the play. The scenes on the stage are burlesqued to a degree, and Sennett has, as is his usual wont in staging such scenes, made them funnier by giving away the mechanics of the properties. Supporting Benjamin X. Turpin in this greatest of Sennett's pictures are such well-known funmakers as Phyllis Haver, Jim Finlayson, Charles Conklin, Charles Murray, Kala Pasha, and Ford Sterling, already mentioned. The piece is billed as " 'Married Life,' Not a War Picture." Picturegoers will doubtless be interested in Wanda Hawley's first starring picture for Realart, "Miss Hobbs." Adolph Zukor, who is the grand mogul of Famous PlayersLasky, also has much to say in the policy of the Realart concern. Mr. Zukor, therefore, robbed his Famous Players outfit of a most popular leading lady and by the process gained for his Realart pictures a star of promise in Miss Hawley. In the routine of expressing an opinion heretofore I believe I have more than once stated that I object to the haphazard process of making popular leading men and women of the screen into stars. They very often are not fitted for the stellar job, and because of the difficulties of the new work sometimes lose strength and with it popularity. More often than not these new stars are not matured and ripened sufficiently to hold down their new positions. I could go into details and mention names to prove my point, but will refrain. Miss Hawley was not, to my mind, a potential star, but "Miss Hobbs" seems to prove that my mind was wrong, for herein the blond Wanda displays ability that she never displayed before. Miss Hobbs is a man-hater, and the little plot relates the manner in which she was won by a member of the hated species who deliberately set out to accomplish her defeat. Harrison Ford — and I do hope they won't make him into a star, for what would our poor feminine luminaries do then? — who has given of his best to practically every lady headliner on the screen, appears as the man giving the star magnificent support, and there are many superbly played comedy scenes between him and Miss Hawley. Aside from this "Miss Hobbs" has been given a decidedly unique production by Donald Crisp and benefits by some very good comedy byplay by Jack Mulhall, Walter Hiers, Julianne Johnson, and Helen Jerome Eddy. The three productions mentioned above hit the comedy goal squarely. There are a number of others recently released which hit it also, but not immediately, and often stray intQ the commonplace. It is worth noting that Selz In "Sick Abed" starring Wallace Reid, the laughs come thick and fast.