Picture-Play Magazine (Mar-Aug 1921)

The Screen In which our critic calls upon opinions upon some of By Agnes IT is no easy job to review motion pictures alone and singlehanded. If a board of three censors cannot estimate a motion picture correctly, what is a mere critic to do? Is the critic a "fan" who looks at pictures for entertainment, or an expert who is wise enough and, at the same time, foolish enough to tell producers how to run their studios ? When reviewing a picture, must the critic put on blue or rose-colored spectacles? Just as an interesting experiment I am not acting as lone critic for Picture-Play Magazine this month. At the showing of each picture, I have called in a volunteer critic, just to find out what persons who pay money for screen entertainment think of the movies. I discovered one thing: not only is every one eager and anxious to .go to the movies, but every one is eager and anxious to talk about them, criticize them, and give a few suggestions as to how they should be made. To be honest, in telling you about the new pictures, I shall give my own opinion and then the opinion of the volunteer reviewer. And I shall state the age, employment, and previous condition of servitude of the assistant critics. The most important picture of the month is "J'Accuse," because it was first shown in the ballroom of the Hotel Ritz-Carlton, and because invitations to the showing were handsomely engraved affairs, guaranteed to flatter and attract the recipient thereof. "J'Accuse" is no ordinary picture, and it has no ordinary history. It was produced by Abel Gance, a French director, and many of the scenes were filmed while M. Gance *was serving in the trenches with the French army. Imported to this country by Marc Klaw, it is one of the first French productions to enter into competition with the German-made pictures. If it does not achieve the popularity of the German productions, it will be because the Germans have shown an uncanny aptitude for giving the public something new, while this French director merely gives us an imitation of D. W. Griffith. "J'Accuse" contains every known ingredient of the war picture. It tells of a woman who is loved by two "J'Accuse" is a magnificent preachment against war, knocking to pieces all the arguments about the ennobling influence of war. men. According to time-honored French custom, one of the men is her husband, the other is a young and handsome idealist who writes poetry and doesn't believe in war. But when the order for mobilization comes, both men volunteer and find themselves comrades in the trenches. The wife goes to visit relatives in the north of France. M. Gance evidently sent her to the German lines in order to have her take part in the wellknown atrocities. What is a war picture without a war baby? None of the characters in "J'Accuse" make the slightest appeal to our sympathies. When a Frenchman attempts to picture sympathetically one of his fellow countrvmen in a drama, he can be trusted to turn out a stuffed for brains. The three principal find some sort of spiritual hero with sawdust characters in "J'Accuse' significance in the horrors of the war, but by the time they have achieved souls thev are either dead or insane, and so you cannot get worked up over them. In spite of the fact that he is free in his use of hokum M. Gance manages to make "J'Accuse" a picture worth seeing and worth thinking about. Did you ever see a picture turn from a mediocre film to a wonderful production in ten minutes? That is what happens to "J'Accuse." Forgetting his foolish characters and his spectacular battle scenes, M. Gance stages one of the most inspired scenes I have ever watched. It is a magnificent preachment against war and knocks to pieces all the arguments about the ennobling influence of war. At the climax of the picture, M. Gance states the theme of "J'Accuse." He brings to life the dead army of France. The soldiers, covered with wounds and dirt, arise from their graves, and. while the living conquerors are passing beneath the Arc de Triomphe, the dead heroes march above them. The dead soldiers return to their homes and their villages ; they return to accuse the living. They accuse the profiteers, the politicians, the men who stayed at home, and the women who have forgotten them. "Were you worth the sacrifice we made?" they ask. It isn't pleasant, but it is impressive. Those who saw the picture in the Ritz-Carlton received it rather indifferently until M. Gance turns his guns on the unworthy living instead of on the Germans. And then the audience forgot its rudeness and became silent. I hope some of the distinguished persons present were uncomfortable. Now for the opinion of the volunteer critic. The critic who saw "J'Accuse" with me was a woman stage director, who has directed a successful stock company in Los Angeles. She also worked in France with the