Picture Play Magazine (Sep 1927 - Feb 1928)

59 A Confidential Guide to Current Releases WHAT EVERY FAN SHOULD SEE. "Beau Qeste" — Paramount. A gripping film production of this unusual mystery melodrama of the French Foreign Legion. Ronald Colman, Neil Hamilton, and Ralph Forbes score individual hits as the three devoted brothers. Entire cast excellent. "Ben=Hur" — Metro-Goldwyn. A beautiful and inspiring picture, directed w^ith skill and originality. Ramon Novarro, in title role, gives earnest and spirited performance ; Francii X. Bushman excellent as Messala; May McAvoy, Betty Bronson, Kathleen Key, and Carmel Myers all handle their roles well. "Big Parade, The"— Metro-Goldwyn. Grippingly realistic war picture. Story of three tired, dirty doughboys, one of whom is John Gilbert, who falls in love with a French girl, played remarkably well by Renee Adoree. "Don Juan" — Warner. Beauty, action, and excitement are combined to make a splendid film version of this did tale. John Barrymore gives skilled performance. Mary Astor, Estelle Taylor, and entire cast well chosen. "Faust" — Metro-Goldwyn. Beautiful film. Superbly directed and convincingly acted. Well-chosen cast, with Emil Jannings making a robust but malignant Mephisto. "Fire Brigade, The"— Metro-Goldwyn. A real thriller about firemen and fires. Don't miss it. Charlie Ray is his old, lovable self as a boy fireman in love with a millionaire's daughter — May McAvoy. "Kid Brother, The"— Paramount. Another big hit for Harold Lloyd. Ingenius comedy of browbeaten younger brother who turns out to be the hero of the village, and wins the girl, Jobyna Ralston. "Old Ironsides" — Paramount. Magnificent historical film featuring the frigate Constitution and manj sea battles. Esther Ralston and Charles Farrell furnish the love interest, Wallace Beery and George Bancroft the comedy. "Rough Riders, The"— Paramount. Interesting picture built round Theodore Roosevelt's part in the SpanishAmerican War, and interwoven with the sirnple, human love story of a girl and two soldiers — Mary Astor, Charles Emmett Mack, and Charles Farrell. "Scarlet Letter, The"— Metro-Goldwyn. Outstanding for the surprisingly fine performance of Lillian Gish and the magnetism of Lars Hanson. A sympathetic and dignified, though not entirely faithful, treatment of Hawthorne's novel. "Seventh Heaven"— Fox. Tale of a Parisian waif whose first taste of happiness is snatched from her when her hero,_ a sewer worker, is swept off to \var just as they are about to be married. Admirable performances by Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell. "Slide, Kelly, Slide"— Metro-Goldwyn. Corking baseball picture, featuring William Haines as a wise-cracking Yankee recruit, with Sally O'Neil as the girl who helps to take him down several pegs. "Stark Love" — Paramount. Unusual film that was produced in the mountains of North Carolina, with the mountaineers themselves enacting the simple but intensely interesting story. "Variety" — Paramount. The muchheralded German picture dealing with the triangular relations between three trapeze performers — a girl and two men. Terrifically gripping. Emil Jannings, Lya de Putti and Warwick V^ard give inspired performances. "Way of All Flesh, The"— Paramount. Emil Jannings' first American film. Simple, human story revealing the star at his best in a tragically pathetic role. Belle Bennett, Phyllis Haver, and Donald Keith. "What Price Glory" — Fox. Swift, engrossing film version of the unusual war play. Racy story of the rivalry between a captain and a sergeant over a French girl. Edmund Lowe, Victor McLaglen, and Dolores del Rio. FOR SECOND CHOICE. "Adam and Evil" — Metro-Goldwyn. Lew Cody and Aileen Pringle in amusing domestic farce of the" complications stirred up between a bored married couple by the unexpected arrival of the husband's twin brother. "Alias the Deacon" — Universal. Jean Hersholt in role of lovable crook who poses as a deacon and is instrumental in bringing together the two young people of the film — June Marlowe and Ralph Graves. "All Aboard"First National. Fast Johnny Hines comedy of an acrobatic shoe clerk who somehow lands in the Arabian desert and saves the heroine, Edna Murphy, from a sheik. "Annie Laurie" — Metro-Goldwyn. Lillian Gish in mildly interesting picture based on the ancient feud between two Scotch clans. Norman Kerry is the blustering hero. "Barbed Wire" — Paramount. Pola Negri and Clive Brook in unique war drama of French peasant girl who falls in love with a Gerrnan prisoner and is shunned by her fellow townsmen. "Cabaret" — Paramount. Gilda Gray in sure-fire film of a dancer who foils the villain, saves her erring brother from jail, and captures the heart of the detective — Tom Moore. "Callahans and the Murphys, The" — Metro-Goldwyn. Entertaining sure-fire film of Irish brawls and reconciliations, notable chiefly for the comedy of Marie Dressier and Polly Moran. "Camille" — First National. Norma Talmadge lovely in unconvincing modern version of Dumas' tragic love tale. Gilbert Roland shine§ in romantic role of Armand. "Captain Salvation" — Metro-Goldwyn. Somber film of religious bigotry in New England of the '40s, and subsequent sinister happenings on board a convict ship. Lars Hanson, Pauline Starke, and Marceline Day. "Casey at the Bat" — Paramount. Wallace Beery in amusing film of baseball in the '90s, with Zasu Pitts as the home-town milliner who wins the heart of our hero. "Chang" — Paramount. Thrilling animal picture photographed in the jungles of Siam and showing the actual struggle of a native family against the onslaughts of the wilderness. "Children of Divorce" — Paramount. A high-society film dealing with the unhappy lives of three children of divorced couples. Lots of plot and excellent cast, headed by Esther Ralston, Clara Bow, and Gary Cooper. "Convoy" — First National. Dorothy Mackaill in secret-service melodrama of a society girl who sacrifices herself to save the United States navy, only to be spurned by every one and clapped into jail. Lawrence Gray and William Collier, Jr. "Cradle Snatchers" — Fox. Louise Fazenda is the ringleader in boisterous farce of three neglected middle-aged wives who hire three college boys to make their husbands jealous. "Dearie" — Warner. Tale of a mother who secretly sings in a night club in order to put her snobbish son through college. Irene Rich and William Collier, Jr. "Evening Clothes" — Paramount. Adolphe Menjou in mildly diverting story of a bankrupt Parisian boulevardier who, when his creditors permit him to keep one suit of clothes, chooses evening dress. Virginia Valli and Louise Brooks. "Fashions for Women" — Paramount. Gay Parisian farce revealing Esther Ralston in a dual role and an array of beautiful clothes. Einar Hansen and Raymond Hatton. "Fighting Eagle, The"— Pathe-DeMille. Rod La Roque in excellent role of patriotic French country youth in the service of Napoleon whose affair with the emperor's spy, Phyllis Haver, gets him into trouble. "First Auto, The" — Warner. Melodrama, laid in the '90s, of a father's estrangement from his son because of the son's ardor for the newly invented horseless carriage. Charles Emmett Mack and Patsy Ruth Miller. "Frisco Sally Levy" — Metro-Goldwyn. Sally O'Neil in amusing comedy featuring the intimate home life of a family headed by an Irish mother and a Jewish father. "Is Zat So?" — Fox. Featuring the comic results when a down-and-out prize fighter and his manager — George O'Brien and Edmund Lowe — temporarily act as butler and second man in a Fifth Avenue mansion. Coiilinued on page 117