Picture-Play Magazine (Mar-Aug 1926)

The Screen in Review 69 Crook Versus Crook. "The Little Irish Girl," so called for no good reason, is a jerky, muddled picture, with frequent intervals of very good entertain-) ment. However, as Dolores Costello is the heroine, it is just as pleasant, when the plot becomes too complicated, to give up all together and settle down to watching Miss Costello. In a nest of crooks, Miss Costello is the ill-treated young lady who has no opportunity to he a good girl. She is a variety of Oliver Tzcist. But when she journeys with the crooks to the country to rob grandma of her farm, the peace and the quiet and grandma's grandson ger the better of her, and reform sets in. Most of the crime in this picture is thwarted, but there are enough surprises to keep the story alive in any event. John Harron is the innocuous hero. Romantic Beauty. In the new costume comedy, "Beverly of Graustark," Marion Davies fulfills the promises she gave in "Little Old New York" and "When Knighthood Was in Flower." This is a smart, delightfully photographed film of love and deception in a mythical kingdom somewhere in Europe. Miss Davies reaches humorous heights in "Beverly," which presents the golden opportunity for a girl to masquerade as her cousin, Prince Oscar. In a glistening uniform, with her hair cut closely and a jaunty hat over one eye, she strays lightly from one embarrassing situation to another. She is prepared for bath and bed by a handsome young officer ; she is forced to drink four long and strong drinks as toasts to king and Graustark ; and yet, there is not a suggestion of movie suggestiveness. Miss Davies is refreshing and sensible. All the leading parts — Danton, acted by Antonio Moreno; the villainous general, by Roy d'Arcy ; and Prince Oscar, by Creighton Hale — are excellently played. As you all know, this film was adapted from the story by George Barr McCutcheon, the inventor of mythical kingdoms. Very Old Virginia. "The Runaway" is a bucolic comedy featuring that amazing 3'oung person, Clara Bow. The plot rests on the ability of Miss Bow to look as cunning as possible in overalls, and she makes a huge success of it. From overalls to a sunbonnet is the next bit of story. It is a tale of the hills, with Miss Bow escaping from an amorous voting man whom she very nearly kills — or rather, it looks as though she had. She is picked up in the woods by a man from the hills, who blossoms forth in the subtitles with an amazing dialect. He asks her, "Air you decent?" and upon being assured she is, takes her home with him. After a while, the other young man comes to take her back to New York, but she decides to stay in the hills where sunbonnets and overalls grow on trees. Nothing very new in this picture, you will admit,' except Clara Bow, who after all is not exactly timeworn. The cast is good, including Warner Baxter, William Powell, George Bancroft, and Edythe Chapman. William de Mille was the director. Domestic Troubles. Marie Prevost and Monte Blue are tangled up domestically once more in "Other Women's Husbands." This none-too-novel picture is a tangle between husband and wife, a lawyer friend of the family, and a beautiful lady named Grace. Miss Prevost leaves for the country on a vacation, and the attorney persuades Monte Blue to call on the attractive Grace. When Miss Prevost returns from the country, she finds her husband very much taken with the other lady, and of course the attorney consoles the neglected wife. After that, there is a series of situations which might have been amassed from all the pictures of the last ten years, but the ending is all beauty and light and renunciation. It is said that this is an original story, but that may have been put in just as a joke. Phyllis Haver and Huntly Gordon are the other couple. Continued on page 109 "■Beverly of Graustark."