Picture-Play Magazine (Sep 1927 - Feb 1928)

67 A Confidential Guide to Current Releases WHAT EVERY FAN SHOULD SEE. "Beau Geste" — 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 with skill and originality. Ramon Novarro, in title role, gives earnest and spirited performance; Francis 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. "Cat and the Canary, The" — Universal. One of the best mystery stories yet filmed. Very spooky and exciting. Excellent cast, including Laura La Plante and Creighton Hale. "Don Juan" — Warner. Beauty, action, and excitement are combined to make a splendid film version of this old tale. John Barrymore gives skilled performance. Mary Aster, Estelle Taylor, and entire cast well chosen. "Garden of Allah, The"— MetroGoldwyn. Alice Terry and Ivan Petrovich in poetic film version of this famous story of Trappist monk who forsakes his monastery, meets a young Englishwoman in the desert, and marries her without revealing his identity. "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 many 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 simple, 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 war just as they are about to be married. Admirable performances by Janet 'iaynor 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 VVard 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. "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 German prisoner and is shunned by her fellow townsmen. "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 shines 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. "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. "College"— United Artists. Buster Keaton in amusing college comedy of awkward bookworm who, to impress his girl, strives vainly to become an athlete. "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. "Desired Woman, The" — Warner. Another of those desert films. Irene Rich in role of titled Englishwoman at British army post whose cruel, jealous husband sends on a. perilous mission any man who dares look at her. "Drop Kick, The"-yFirst National. Richard Barthelmess in melodramatic college film of young student who becomes dangerously mixed up with a scheming vamp. "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. "Hula" — Paramount. Clara Bow, in thin story of Hawaii, is the wild daughter of a rich planter who sets her cap for a cold, reticent irrigation expert — Clive Brook — and gets him. "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. "Judgment of the Hills"— F. B. O. Strong, simple tale of a hard-fisted .mountaineer who is afraid to go to war, but eventually becomes a hero. Orville Caldwell and Virginia Valli. "King of Kings, The"— Producers Distributing. Sincere and reverent visualization of the last three years in the life of Christ. H. B. Warner dignified and restrained in central role. Cast includes Jacqueline Logan, Joseph Schildkraut, Victor Varconi, and Rudolph Schildkraut. Continued on Dace 116