Picture Play Magazine (Mar-Aug 1927)

The Screen in Review 73 At least two episodes are carried to extremes and become offensively vulgar, but for all that, "Rookies'" is a good picture of its kind. Dane and Arthur are immense. Miasma. "The Heart Thief" has a colorful beginning ; but the rest of it is about as lively as a funeral march and as believable as a puppet show. This is due to poor direction more than anything else. The studio carpenters are the stars of the picture, for the sincerity of their labor is evidenced in the rich, baronial interiors of a castle in Hungary. Lya de Putti, the daughter of a peasant, marries Count Franz, an old landowner, whose relatives are waiting for him to die. Lya does this to help hei father — and probably also because she wanted to be sure of playing what passes for a sympathetic role. The scheming relatives hire Joseph Schildkraut to compromise her, but he later discovers that Lya is the girl he loves. Follows a lot of whispered scheming — far duller than it sounds — and in the end Mr. Schildkraut compromises the wife of one of the villains. Just why this should be a cue for Mr. Schildkraut and Miss de Putti to fall into the attitude of a happy ending, I can't say. However, the old Count beams with benevolence, and Lya seemingly forgets that she was threatening to shoot Mr. Schildkraut just three minutes before. But, as I said, the settings are handsome. Mr. Schildkraut plays his role with straight, not curl} hair, and Miss de Putti appears in a blond wig. Speckled Fruit. "Bitter Apples" is the meaningless title of a meaningless picture, although it may symbolize the state of mind of a girl who marries a man out of revenge, and then falls in love with him. To my knowledge there have been few cases of this nature, but as the episodes in the picture bear no relation to actuality, anyway, I suppose neither the title nor the story worried the director, just so long as people and objects were kept moving. Myrna Loy, an American girl with — hist ! — Sicilian blood in her veins, sets her cap for Monte Blue, because her father has lost his money in the failure of Monte's bank. A strangely warped sense of justice, to say the least — this scheme to break his heart in order to make him "suffer." Oh, well, she marries him while" both are aboard ship, and then, in full view of every last one of the passengers, Myrna tells Monte that she "hates" him. Though her father was a New Englander, it doesn't keep her from being all Sicilian in her appetite for big scenes. Nothing genuine comes of all this, however, except a shipwreck, and Monte "tames" the girl in time for their rescue by a revenue cutter. A Siren Repents. Gaudy, stag)', heavily dramatic, "The Heart of Salome" intrigues the experienced onlooker by its resemblance to pictures of a bygone day — the day when Theda Bara gloried in playing "the wickedest woman in Paris." Of course, this film is far better produced and acted, and it cost heaps more than those pictures of long ago, but the spirit is the same. There is the lovely, alluring adventuress, a mere pawn in the hands of the bad baron, whose nefarious operations cover all Europe, and from whom she aches to be free so that she may spend the rest of her days in the country. But, yes, she will turn just one more trick for him, if he will then let her leave this hateful life. The trick — oh, the heartbreak of it ! — deprives the man she secretly loves of valuable "papers." Too late she learns the truth, and then — remorse. Worse still, the man, an athletic American — shall we say engineer, or artist ? — will not believe she is a good woman. He reviles her. Then she turns tigress, sees a painting of Salome, which gives an excuse for the film's title, and demands the American's life. She even promises to marry the baron if he will avenge her! He tries to, but the Stars and Stripes are his undoing, and the ending is as idyllic as a day in June. Alma Rubens, Walter Pidgeon, Holmes Herbert, Barn' Norton, and Robert Agnew are the valiant and capable band who use the pulmotor on "The Heart of Salome." [Continued on page 108', 'Cabaret." 'Bitter Apples.