Picture Play Magazine (Sep 1920 - Feb 1921)

1 he Screen in Review 53 'as > little town in the South — and in a good many in the North — Old Hutch, the laziest man in the village, who has given his wife a half dozen children to worry about and work for. The idea of working himself never enters his head until he has the thrill of discovering fifty thousand dollars hidden away in the ground. Realizing that if he proceeds to spend the money immediately he will lay himself open to suspicion, he hides it away again and goes to work in order to get a reputation for thrift and wealth. Here is a comedy situation which Rogers has handled delightfully. That sense of humor which seems to exude from his every pore dominates the development of the story and carries it through to a genuine happy conclusion. For after Hutch has made good as a toiler he goes for the buried fifty thousand and finds that it is gone. But instead of a bit of trash Hatch finds himself a respected member of the community, loved by his wife, and looked up to by his children. The same type of human interest that makes the rural melodrama so popular is transplanted to the city in "39 East," I an adaptation of the play of • last season by Rachel Crothers, ^•tarring Constance Binney in her original role. The romance of Penelope Penn, who comes to New York to seek a fortune " in a church choir, and who is forced to take to the chorus to earn a living, attended by the I homely and delightfully amusing scenes of the boarding house, unite to make a picture jof the most thoroughly enjoy: able kind. ! "39 East" is by all odds the best production in which Miss ■ Binney has appeared. If her previous pictures had contained oifi one half its merit as to story, atmosphere, and human inter| est, she would be a bigger star gj to-day. She is very capably d\ supported by the cast intrusted with the task of bringing to the screen the various unusual and distinctive characters of the original production. Melodramas reflecting the shadows of the underworld, picturing life in its darker phases have been as prominent of late as the more healthv "trulv rurals." William Fox's "While New York Sleeps" is a thing of various shadows. It presents three stories, all dealing with characters from or adjacent to the underworld of New York. All three are meant to be sensational, but the first two episodes are among the most disgusting presentations which have been shown on the screen as well as the stupidest. •; That part of New York represented by the audience on one evening at least seemed to feel that it might better 1 have slept than spent its time witnessing the first part of the picture. Doubtless the censors in smaller communities will spare theatergoers there the boredom and unpleasantness of watching the two stories which might better have been omitted. They are "Out of the Night," built on the old story of the reappearance of the worthless husband of a woman who, thinking him dead, had married again, and "The Badger Game," showing a woman of the underworld and a detective tricking each other. This is the worst of the three stories. The third, "A Tragedy of the East Side," is the best of the three. It tells of an old paralytic, superbly played by Marc McDermott, forced to sit in his dingy room by the edge of the East River with the realization that in the shabby attic above the wife of his adored son is lying in the arms of another man. His revenge on the woman does not prevent the tragedy of the boy's death and how he accomplishes it is best told in the picture. Estelle Taylor makes a primitive, passionate figure of the wife, while Harry Sothern as the son and Earl Metcalf as the intruder complete a fine cast. If our "Way Down Easts" and our "Homespun Folkses" are melodramas on the "b'gosh" type, "While New York Sleeps" is on the "b'damned." In the same category, by reason of a single sequence at its beginning, lies Norma Talmadge's latest picture, "The Branded Woman." The old story of the woman with a past, afraid to reveal it to the man she loves, who is forced into a crucial situation by a blackmailer after her marriage, is presented with little variance from the common order save for Miss Talmadge's poignant emotionalism. The sequence referred to shows the heroine's mother, proprietress of a gambling house, attempting to force her daughter on a roue. Taking exception to this, after passing lightly over the badger game of "While New York Sleeps" may seem inconsistent, but it is one thing to see plain, vicious melodrama, and another to see the attempted despoiling of innocence when the chief protagonist in the attempt is the innocent's mother. T/ze Price of Redemption, unusual thing, a picture with Bert Lytell, is an with too much action. "The Price of Redemption" is one of those unusual things, a picture with too much action. This adaptation of I. A. R. Wylie's novel, in which Bert Lytell is starred carries the spectator from India to England and back. The story is one of many extremes, few of which are convincing. Lytell appears as the hero of a British engagement in India, who returns to England and marries for money, subsequently drinking himself silly ever)' evening. His regeneration is accomplished through a diverse series of events which pilot him to miserable opium dens, to the windows of his wife's home, where he watches her mistreated by his successor, and to the palace of a native chieftain. In the end, after several Continued on page 96 I