Picture Play Magazine (Sep 1923 - Feb 1924)

The Screen in Review Good news about the long-promised, big, special productions for this season and frank critical estimates of some other pictures. By Agnes Smith TH'E open season for art has begun in New York and all the movie firstnighters have shaken the camphor balls out of their dress suits to pay tribute to the brave producers who have shot their bank rolls on super-productions. Such an adding up of production costs and such a figuring out of how many dollars it takes to turn out screen art as you never heard before ! The old Egyptian contractor who estimated how many tons of onions were consumed by the buildersi of the Pyramids had nothing on the movie sleuths who are obliged to consider how much it cost to hire the extras for the newest pictures. For the keynote of the early crop of world beaters is money. Unless you are a fan living in a big city with expensive theaters you won't have your eye knocked out by these new pictures for some time to come. Many of the old factories for films aren't assembling jitneys any more; they are turning out Rolls-Royces and somebody — probably the ultimate consumer — will have to pay and pay and pay to see them. The new movies are like the little girl with the little curl ; the good ones are very, very good and the bad ones are simply hopeless. You have your choice between paying higher admissions and getting a good show or paying the old price and getting a black eye. The loudest cheering has been inspired by '"Little Old New York" and Marion Davies. If you haven't seen "Little Old New York" you simply cannot hope to keep up your social position. It would be like admitting that you hadn't been to the "Follies." The picture has caused such a stir that even Mayor Hylan, New York's mayor, and Heywood Broun, its favorite feature writer, got into a controversy about it. But both parties to the argument admitted that it was a good picture. 'Little Old New York" was adapted from a stage play by Rida Johnson Young. It was a nice little play and Genevieve Tobin, a nice little actress who will soon be seen in films, made quite a hit in it. Mr. Hearst bought it for Cosmopolitan, gave the leading role to Marion Davies, hired Josef Urban to design the settings and assigned Sidney Olcott to direct it. By using the magic of money and the talents of a perfect staff, he turned it into a rarely beautiful picture. And, what is even better, a marvelously entertaining one. The story itself is artificial. It concerns a young Irish girl who masquerades as a boy in order to come to America and collect a fortune. But the background of New York in the first years of the nineteenth century is a genuine one. Those were the days when the first Vanderbilt ran the ferry boat to Staten Island, In "Little Old New York," a picture which inspires loud cheers, Marion Davies accomplishes the feat of playing artificial comedy so that it really is funny. when John Jacob Astor sold furs and pianos and when Delmonico peddled sandwiches. And those were the days when Robert Fulton invented the steam boat. When the old Clermont goes chug-chug up the waters1 of the Hudson you get the same sort of thrill that comes over you when you see the starting of the covered wagons. It is history brought to life and made dramatic. And it is the screen brought to an understanding of its best powers; the power of telling epic events in terms of pantomime, motion and pictures. ■I don't know whether to cheer loudest for the steam boat or for Marion Davies. If any one had told me two years ago that Miss Davies would be one of my favorite actresses, I would have stopped going to pictures. But here she is giving none other than Mary Pickford a run for her money by stepping into the very first place among light comediennes. Miss Davies' rise in real popularity has been dramatic in itself. For years, she was one of those stars we all could do without. A sullen, rather pretty, hopelessly self-conscious and dumb little thing, she walked through a series of bad pictures. Then came "Knighthood" and, by dint of a tremendous effort, she gave