Picture-Play Magazine (Mar-Aug 1927)

The Screen in Review government, and the Mounted Police were first sent to control the lawless element. On this foundation James Oliver Curwood built a stirring story and Reginald Barker has filmed it with his customary straightforwardness and tense, dramatic action, with natural backgrounds of thrilling beauty. Antonio Moreno is Sergeant David Carrigan, the forerunner of all the "Mounties," and Renee Adoree is Jeanne-Marie. Both play with their usual effectiveness, but for that matter the same can be said of all the long cast. "The Flaming Forest" is a good picture, carefully done. Then Came the Armistice. "Tin Hats" makes a farce of the war, or rather the adventures of three — there must, it seems, always be three — buddies overseas. There is little or no plot, but a great deal of movement and some of it is very amusing indeed, yet those who have seen all the recent war pictures may find the edge taken off this one. Conrad Nagel proves his versatility by making Jack Benson a believable doughboy, and Claire Windsor, as a German baroness, cooperates with the camera to make a beautiful heroine — and wears, by the way, the latest 1927 hats and gowns. The haughty baroness marries the gum-chewing doughboy in the end, so you see "Tin Hats" can't be taken seriously. If You Believe It, It's True. "The Cheerful Fraud" is a lively guy but not a particularly funny one, even though Reginald Denny and every one in the cast runs the risk of straining a ligament in trying to put over the preposterous situations of the picture. They make you feel they need a rest cure more than your applause. When the valet mistakes Charles Gerrard for Denny because the former's face is smeared with beauty clay, you know the game is up so far as plausibility is concerned. Thereafter it's just one prank after another, all starting when Denny, spying Gertrude Olmsted, gets a job in the household where Gertie is a social secretary. Denny is Sir Michael Fairlie and Gerrard is a notorious crook who, masquerading as Sir Michael, is entertained in the very house where the real Sir Michael is employed. It's all quite naive, and there's a diamond necklace, too, and a good performance, as usual, by Gertrude Astor. Soothing Syrup. Unfortunately, "The White Black Sheep" is another black mark against Richard Barthelmess. The character of Robert Kincairn is not a sheep at all, but a goat so far as Barthelmess is concerned. His screen life begins in England, where he senselessly permits his father to denounce him before a roomful of guests for a theft of which Robert's girl is guilty. It is inconceivable that a proud father, however hot-tempered, would so brand his son in the presence of comparative strangers, but this is only one instance of an unconvincing story, poorly directed, on which much money has been spent for scenery. At any rate, Robert is next seen in the Orient, though not of the Foreign Legion, with a new name, a beard, and love for Zelie, who is described as a Greek dancing girl and portrayed by Patsy Ruth Miller. Disguised as a beggar, he learns of El Rahib's plot to put an end to British rule, and at the critical moment gives the information to the commandant, who happens to be none other than his irascible father. To end the suspense, let me assure you that Robert's father does forgive him and, moreover, approves of the Greek dancing girl. Unfermented Lubitsch. What company with Marie Prevost in its corral would delay casting her as a Viennese wife, after all she has done, with the help of Ernst Lubitsch. to make these ladies popular? Certainly not Metropolitan, for we now have Miss Prevost in "For Wives Only," a giddy tale of no consequence, in which Victor Varconi may be said to play the title role. It's about a young physician, popular with women patients, who leaves his wife in charge of three old friends — Charles Gerrard, Continued on page 104