Picture Play Magazine (Mar-Aug 1927)

The Screen in Review 71 Baseball in the '90s. Some of the class ma} w ax uproarious over Wallace Been in "Case}' at the Bat," and some of you won't, particularly those who look for something more amusing than the sight of a man, about to lose his trousers, who rushes into a kitchen, and sits upon a slab of limburger. This is an occurrence early in the picture, and it is only fair to state that it doesn't happen again, but it does establish the vein in which "Casey at the Bat" was conceived. Casey, the junkman of Centerville back in the '90s, is coaxed to leave the village and join the Giants in New York at six hundred dollars a week. He doesn't knew what it's all about, but goes to the city and steps wide and handsome. There is a baseball scandal later on, and every one thinks that Casey threw the game by striking out, but this is cleared up, as you can guess, and Casey becomes a hero. He has remained a hero all along to Camille, the milliner back home, who is far lovelier than the hats she makes. The role is created by Zasu Pitts, who grows and grows in artistry with each new picture. But even she cannot make plausible the pairing of Camille with the oaf of a junkman. For the milliner is a lady who would have sought "refinement" in her gentlemen friends above all the virtues. Do Mothers Matter ? Honor thy mother-in-law is the moral of "The Fourth Commandment." If you doubt the wisdom of such advice, just see the picture and you will become acquainted with all the dire consequences of crossing a mother-in-law in her love for her offspring. "The Fourth Commandment" is a grand-stand play for hokum. Judged by this standard, it is very good indeed. It has Mary Carr and Belle Bennett to keep the tears rolling. Also, it has a complicated story-, spanning three generations, beginning with Belle Bennett as a young girl who marries the son of Mary Carr, and who comes to rue tne day she permitted her mother-in-law to live with them. Not that Mary Carr is a nagger. Far from it — she holds the love of her son by sweetness alone, and weans her little grandson from his mother by this same sweetness. Years later, Belle Bennett, herself a mother-in-law now, is so sweet to her son that his wife calls him "an apple-faced yam," and beats him up. Notwithstanding all this unmannerly behavior, the picture ends happily for everybody, and the two mothers-in-law are united in realizing that it doesn't pay to be too sweet. While every one acts to beat the band, their skill is made to serve an end, and Robert Agnew, as Belle Bennett's son, contrives somehow to be natural. No Hero to His Valet. Beyond being her bright young self, Colleen Moore hasn't a fair chance in "Orchids and Ermine." The plot could be written on a postage stamp, with a wide margin, and her characterization of Pink Watson, a switchboard operator, is not unusual enough to carry a picture with little or no story. It is all very expensively and thoroughly done — swell sets, high-priced actors, flossy clothes ■ — but the result is just so much fluff, and not funny fluff at that. Miss Moore's remarkable success in the past with sequences in pantomime might just as well never have been achieved, because she is given no opportunity in this film to add to it. She presents the sad sight of an artist wasting her time on a role that almost any one could play. What must be called the story, for lack of a better word, consists of the arrival at Pink's hotel of a young man who has fallen heir to a fortune. The heir changes places with his valet — oh, what a fertile imagination seized upon that chestnut ! — but after he has married Colleen no one will believe he is other than the valet. And he goes to jail because he is, apparently, too dumb to prove his identity. This role is played by Jack Mulhall, whose characterization of the man from Oklahoma consists of English clothing and a pince-nez. Sam Hardy is the valet, and Gwen Lee gets her first big chance as Pink's gold-digger friend. She makes the most of it. Continued on page 96 "Casey at the Bat." "Orchids and Ermine. The Demi-Bride.