Picture-Play Magazine (Mar-Aug 1927)

The Screen in Review 63 I wish the same could be said of Dolores del Rio. However, it can be stated that she brings more animation to Charmaine, the provocative peasant girl, than she has to some of the vague heroines she has played, only her Charmaine is not a peasant but an actress employing studied effects — a stocking, probably silk, carefully rolled to rest around her ankle, and a blouse so cut that it could never fit but must forever slip first from one shoulder then the other. However, she plays with fire and passion. Phyllis Haver, briefly seen as Hilda of China, is brightly compelling, and Leslie Fenton, as the neurotic Lieutenant Moore, blazes forth in a burst of emotion when his nerves go to pieces. Comedy is adroitly purveyed by two doughboys — Ted McNamara and Sammy Cohsn — and Barry Xorton garners some honest tears as a very young soldier, homesick for his mother. A Diamond in the Dust Heap. What more heartening, more stimulating, than the discovery of a polished gem where one looked for a pebble? I mean "Love 'Em and Leave 'Em" — a joy of a picture. * It promised to be just a movie, and ended by becoming a little masterpiece. It's all quite simple and unpretentious— about a group of department-store workers. The interest centers upon Maine, who looks after her younger sister Janie and finds her hands full, for Janie is gay, likes flashy clothes, and goes in for Charleston contests and such. M ame has a young man, too, whose activities as a window dresser are made more successful by Maine's helpful ideas on the subject. During Maine's absence his affections are captured by Janie, and the lives of all three are further complicated by the disappearance of funds intrusted with Janie by the welfare association of the employees. Maine's efforts to recover the money bring about the melodrama of the picture, as well as much of the best acting found in it. For that matter, good acting abounds throughout. Evelyn Brent is superb as Mame, Louise Brooks really challenges serious consideration as Janie, and Osgood Perkins, drafted from the stage, is immense as Lem, the villain of the piece, while Lawrence Gray, that young man who is. dissatisfied with the roles he has had during his year in pictures, proves his ability as a light comedian in this one. Marcia Harris also is excellent as a power in the store. King Comedy Rules Here. Gold stars are liberally sprinkled over any screen that shows Bebe Daniels in "Stranded in Paris." I mean Photo by Aotrey Edmund Lowe, Dolores del Rio, and Victor McLaglen make a memorable trio in "What Price Glory." stars of merit, for this is easily Bebe's best, and furthermore is one of the best of all screen comedies. There's a star for everybody connected with it. It is gay, it is sophisticated, it is hilarious, and it has beauty. What more, please, could one ask? Bebe is Julie McFadden, a shopgirl who wins — very amusingly — a free trip to Paris. There she gets a job with a modiste who sends her to Deauville to deliver a raft of gorgeous gowns to the Countess Pasada. Julie is logicallv mistaken for the Countess, is bowed into her compartment on the train, and welcomed at the hotel. From then on all is outrageous confusion, with Bebe in the Countess' dresses, and eventually with the Countess' husband in her room. While this may read like just another case of mistaken identity, the picture evolved from it is a great deal more than just another lively farce. From beginning to end it is a triumph of the unexpected. James Hall emphasizes the striking impression he made in "The Campus Flirt," Ford Sterling is at his best as the Count, and Mabel Julienne Scott is appropriately commanding as the Countess. Barbara Worth Won at Last. Barbara Worth set a high price on her fair hand, for a desert waste had to bloom like unto a garden before she would favor ]]rillard Holmes with a hospitable glance. But if she had valued herself lightly there would have been nothing for Harold Bell W'right to call "The Winning of Barbara Worth," and less for Samuel Goldwyn to film. There is too little as it is to have enlisted the fine skill of Henry King and the talents of Vilma Banky and Ronald Colman. They are all out of their element. Barbara's father cherishes a dream of reclaiming the desert by irrigation from the Colorado River, but after years of work his money gives out and the aid of an Eastern capitalist is sought. The latter comes West, with his engineer, Willard Holmes, who falls in love with Barbara, and sets about to achieve the seeming miracle, more for her sake than for the job itself. The capitalist proves to be the villain, but the desert blooms just the same, until the harnessed river bursts its traces and lets loose a magnificent flood. It is the villain's undoing, but Barbara and Willard survive to do the next gardening job together. This story is told heavily, more being related by means of titles than by action, yet there are moments of great visual beauty and some suspense, particularly when the flood eats its wav across the land.