Picture Play Magazine (Mar-Aug 1927)

96 Film Struck feeling more like himself again, when the girl came to his table. "How's things?" she inquired, searching his face narrowly. "I'm a lot better," he assured her. "That's good." Penny smiled a little as she surveyed her companion. "You win again, Oscar," she announced. "If you're not the open champion in the game of luck, two and two are five. Picked to play a cowman with a hangover! If that isn't rich! Playing yourself, that's all ! No wonder you were a knockout ! And DuVal never tumbled." Oscar colored swiftly, but his grease paint — what remained of it — hid his blushes. "You — you don't understand " he began. "You mean DuVal doesn't," she corrected. "I — I think it was ptomaine poisoning," he faltered. "Oh, tut, tut! Don't begin springing alibis, Oscar. It isn't the least becoming. You're making yourself ridiculous. It isn't any terrible disgrace getting tight. It's done right along, even in the best families, and maybe you had a reason to celebrate. Say, what do you suppose I heard this morning?" she ran on. "Something about me?" He imagined every one on the place was talking about him, passing remarks, making him out to be a dissolute character. "Lord, no! We're to have a new leading man." "Oh, are we?" Oscar responded indifferently. As if he cared ! Still he was relieved that the conversation had turned into less embarrassing channels. "Who is it?" "Lester Lavender," declared Penny, apparently quite excited. "Isn't that immense?" [to be continued.] The Screen in Review Continued from page 71 It Happened in Hollywood. "The Sea Tiger" was adapted from a story called "A Runaway Enchantress," but the picture shows that the adaptation was an unnatural one. The changes in the story were probably prompted by Milton Sills' success in "The Sea Hawk." The sea was looked upon as a happy choice as a background for Mr. Sills' vim and vigor. Alas, "ol' davil sea" is not to be trusted, and in this case may be said to have cast an evil spell over the whole undertaking. For a sillier film would be hard to find. But if you are so constituted that you like to laugh when you are supposed not to, "The Sea Tiger" may be just what you want. The scene is the Canary Islands, where the brothers Justin and Charles Ramos are in love with the same girl, Mary Astor. This is no sooner settled by Justin's sacrifice, than Lulu, from Broadway, appears on the scene to enliven the native fiesta. How the simple Canaries could import a performer from New York is not explained. But Lulu is neither simple nor slow. She sets the brothers against one another, and generally stirs up trouble. In the end, there is a fist fight between Lulu and Mary Astor, and the former is ingloriously sent home. Mary Astor also knocks Milton Sills cut with a slap. Really, "The Sea Tiger" is a riot — in more ways than one — yet Alice White, as Lulu, and Larry Kent, as Justin's buoyant brother, give spirited and interesting performances. The Epidemic Is Unchecked. The Irish and the Jewish are brought together in another of those curiosities of the screen — "Frisco Sally Levy," in which a large family have names like Rebecca Patricia Lapidowitz, Isidore Xavier Lapidowitz, and so on. Family life is pictured in all its intimacies, and as there is little or no plot beyond the fact that Colleen Lapidowitz leaves home to become a dancer in a night club because her father frowns upon her slick suitor, you have to be content with the pranks of children, the buxom comedy of the Irish mother, and the shrewdness of the Jewish father. However, it is all amusingly and expertly put forth, and is neither as vulgar as "McFadden's Flats" nor as much of a novelty as "The Cohens and the Kellys." In fact, "Frisco Sally Levy" is really the best of its kind, but it's as well to be sure you like this kind before you see it. Sally O'Neil, Charles Delaney, Roy d'Arcy, Kate Price, and Tenen Holtz are the grown-ups, but it is the children who matter most. A Marriage of Convenience. The crash of a teacup sounds the most virile note in "Afraid to Love." The rest of it is smooth, dressy comedy of the class termed polite, neither funny nor dull, but first, last, and always well-bred, refined. Sir Reginald Belsize has been left a lot of money by his uncle — it is always an uncle who makes a freak will — but he can only get it by not marrying Madame de Seminiano, with whom he has been in love for a long time. But it isn't real love, of course, because she is a naughty lady. So a poor, charming girl enters into marriage with Sir Reginald, so that he can get the money and a quick divorce. They fall in love, strange to say, and the naughty lady — who is Peruvian for the sake of novelty — is given the sack. Florence Vidor, Qive Brook, and Jocelyn Lee form the trio, and are all that could be desired under the tepid circumstances. Mothers Must Suffer. Louise Dresser is the bright par ticular star of "White Flannels," which offers little else than her role of a poor, drudging mother whose heart's desire is to see her son in white flannel trousers, a symbol of a gentleman to this woman of a mining town. So she scrimps and saves to send him to college, where he becomes a football star, and also the sweetie of the college belle. This character, quite as false as any ever seen on the screen, turns on him in rage when she discovers that a clumsy waitress at the college banquet is his mother. What is more, she strikes Frank in the face, and screams, "You guttersnipe ! You never told me your mother was a common servant \" Up to this point the picture is interesting, because it is all Miss Dresser's, but after this blow to reason, it settles down to routine. Jason Robards works hard, but is unsympathetic as the son, and Virginia Brown Faire is his first choice before the dressy dame from the city stages her knock-out. The Heart of a Cowboy. "The Brute" gets its name from a genial soul nicknamed "Easy-going" Martin, a cowboy given to a great deal of crying, who horsewhips the villain, and thus caused some one to add the word "brute" to a subtitle. All of which may give you the idea that it was forced. You're right. So is the picture, which, beyond some scenes of oil gushers, has no particular reason for being, unless it is to present Monte Blue in a Western role. He is more plausible an actor in such garb than when attired in a dress suit, but the picture isn't at all plausible. It is built around the old situation of a simple soul of the great open spaces who kisses a girl, and later makes the horrible discovery that she is the leading sprite in a dance hall. And when you learn that she is there because her brother