Picture Play Magazine (Mar-Jul 1929)

68 Walter Byron, Samuel Goldwyn's English "find," makes his American debut in "The Awakening," in which Vilma Banky achieves a graceful bow as an individual star. Pictures inspected this month include "In Old Arizona," "The Awakening," "The Shopworn Angel," "The Rescue," "The Case of Lena Smith," "The River," "Prep and Pep," "The Last Warning," "Romance of the Underworld," "Captain Swagger," "West of Zanzibar, "Dream of Love," "Synthetic Sin," and "A Lady of Chance." 'HAT was the best talking picture last month takes second place a few weeks later, because dialogue on the screen is being perfected far more rapidly than silent pictures were in the early days of the movies. This is to apprise you of the best alldialogue film on the market at the time this is written. Before the April edition of Picture Play is exhausted, no doubt later developments will supersede what holds sway to-day ; but come what may, do, I beg of you, see "In Old Arizona." It will convert the skeptics and rally adherents of screen dialogue to the "cause." Whatever the future may bring, this, like "Lights of New York," is a milestone, and the performances of Warner Baxter, Dorothy Burgess, and Edmund Lowe will become historic, as those of Cullen Landis, Gladys Brockwell, and Wheeler Oakman in the earlier film have become significant landmarks in the progress of talking pictures. Most of the new picture was Movietoned in the open air, hence there is greater variety than has been seen in other talking pictures. So well has the dialogue been constructed and recorded, that there is far less sacrifice of action than we have come to expect as the cost of audibility on the screen, hence "In Old Arizona" more closely approached the natural motion-picture form. Based on the O. Henry story, "The Caballero's Way," it presents a plot gripping in its simplicity and intense in its cumulative interest. It is the age-old story of a woman and two men, and her betrayal of one to the other. The woman is a Mexican, a calico Carmen, whose lover is The Cisco Kid, a Portuguese cattle thief whose passion for her is starkly primitive. Tonia Maria meets Sergeant Mickey Dunn, who is in Arizona to cap ture The Cisco Kid and win not only promotion but five thousand dollars reward. The girl gains his promise to give her the money when he receives it and, sure of this, she concocts a simple plot to bring The Cisco Kid to the place where the soldier will be waiting for him in ambush. But the cattle thief circumvents her, and by a revenge typical of his race and class sends Tonia Maria to the very fate that awaited him. The last scene finds him riding away broken in spirit, but triumphant in his command of life. With such skill and suspense are the twists and turns of this story set forth by a look, a word, and a gesture, that it would be unfair to detail them and deprive you of the keen enjoyment this intrigue will give you as it darts sharply to and fro. As for the performances, they are revelations. Warner Baxter has played many roles excellently, but never has he brought to one of them the rich characterization which his splendid voice gives to The Cisco Kid. It vibrates with every subtle nuance, but is never elocutionary and is always vividly a part of the character. As much can be said of Dorothy Burgess, recruited from the stage for Tonia Maria, and there is also Edmund Lowe to prove that he can bring to his hard-boiled Sergeant Mickey Dunn precisely the vocal equipment of this soldier from the old Bowery. It is a great role, but it is only one of several, all making a great picture. A Maid of Alsace. Vilma Banky proves her right to individual stardom in "The Awakening,''' but it is regrettable that she should have had little help from the picture itself. Visually