Picture Play Magazine (Mar-Aug 1927)

e Screen in Review descends and graciously pauses at the table. With upraised finger and an expression combining wisdom, sadness, and sweetness, the oracle proceeds to enunciate some flub-dub, sails grandly on — and the picture proceeds. However, it's good showmanship, I suppose, and as this element is behind the whole undertaking I imagine the bad taste of it won't be questioned. Antonio Moreno, William Austin, Jacqueline Gadsdon, Priscilla Bonner, and Julia Swayne Gordon support Miss Bow. The Month's Surprise Leon Errol has made all too few screen appearances. You will agree with me when you see "The Lunatic at Large," one of the most unusual, ingenious, and amusing comedies in months. It is as refreshing as spring itself. Join me in a prayer that Errol will do another. He is Sam Smith, a hobo who changes places with a supposed millionaire and thereby finds himself in an asylum for the insane where, despite his protests, he is looked upon as just another nut. However, he discovers the strange plight of a fellow inmate who is no more insane than himself, but whose twin brother has contrived to get him there and is on the point of marrying his fiancee. Whereupon Sam nobly — and comically — makes his escape to prevent the wedding. This is accomplished by means of a thrilling airplane sequence and no end of fantastic mishaps. Errol is in a class by himself as a comedian, and through all his clowning he retains a likable quality which adds greatly to his appeal. Dorothy Mackaill, with not much to do. has never looked more charming. She reveals flashes of spirit not usually shown by her in her more "legitimate" roles. Acting honors go to Kenneth McKenna, a young leading man from the stage, whose impersonation of both twin brothers is finely done and far removed from routine screen acting. There's some splendid double exposure in the picture, too. You oughtn't to miss it, really. A Costly Joke What is easily Buster Keaton's most ambitious comedy is his least funny one. "The General" is based on an actual event in the Civil War, and a serious one at that. Mr. Keaton's task was to invest it with comic byplay, which he does, but there is an underlying solemnity in the proceedings which puts rather a crimp in the farcical treatment given them. Also, "The General" is too long, which condition makes for stretches of action quite devoid of humor. Mr. Keaton's role is that of Johnnie Gray, engineer of the train known as "The General" running through Georgia in 1861. When war is declared he tries to enlist, but is refused as being of greater service to the Confederacy in his engine. His sweetheart is made to believe otherwise and rejects him until he shall come to her in uniform. Johnnie Gray's engine is seized by Union marauders and the motivation of the story is his recovery of it. In doing so, he overhears plans of attack, and dashes across the State in "The General" to warn the Confederate forces. He is pursued by the enemy, of course, but wins the chase and gets a lieutenancy — and the girl — as his reward. "The General" is a one-man show, a mistake in a picture lasting over an hour. No Mother to Guide Her It is impossible to see Dolores Costello in "The Third Degree" without thinking of "Variety," because there's a circus sequence in it done by Michael Curtiz, a German director, in the manner of the Jannings picture — and done very finely indeed. But after the circus episode is finished, the film settles down to "societv" melodrama of an extremely conventional sort. Miss Costello, as a slack-wire queen, marries a scion of wealth whose stern father makes some high-hat utterances about "this girl of the lower classes," when any one with half an eye can see that Miss Costello has it all over him in the matter of good manners. At any rate, the father employs a blackguard to compromise his son's wife, and the son kills the villain, while Miss Costello stiff rs and suffers through a great many reels until all ends in a blaz f