Picture Play Magazine (Mar-Jul 1929)

Record Details:

Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.

Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.

e Screen in ReViextf in "The Rescue," our lesson of the moment. It is a difficult subject, presenting problems to the critic; but perhaps the presence of Mr. Colman as the star will solve them to his admirers, if not your reviewer, whose opinion of his art, per se, is not of the highest. "The Rescue" is based on Joseph Conrad's novel, and is directed by Herbert Brenon, who performed similar service for "Beau Geste" and, latterly, "Laugh, Clown, Laugh." His direction is distinctly an asset to any picture, and to this one it is of inestimable value. Despite this, he labors valiantly with material not suited to the screen. Or at least its full expression is not possible of attainment on the screen. Every essential of the story — its movement, picturesqueness, and romance — has been preserved, but it remains a shell, because it is empty of the author's literary quality and the psychology of his characters as they live in the printed page. Though their actions are lucidly set forth in a smooth continuity, the spectator finds himself more interested in their thoughts, but he gets only a skeleton of them. Not through insufficient characterization, nor inadequate titles, but because of the limitations of the screen. For this reason "The Rescue" is interesting, but not as thrilling as its situations would indicate. These situations chiefly concern Tom Lingard — "King Tom," the natives of the Malay Archipelago call him — and Edith Travers, wife of an Englishman whose yacht is stranded in the waters which Lingard virtually rules. Though a gunrunner by circumstance and an adventurer by choice, Lingard adheres to a stern code of honor which denies his love for Mrs. Travers in the face of hers for him. He has promised to help certain of the natives to regain their kingdom, which has been seized by a pirate savage. At the critical moment in his plan he succumbs to the lure of Mrs. Travers, who fails to give him a ring entrusted to her as a signal, and in consequence those who relied on Lingard perish. He assumes the blame, even when the woman tells him the truth, and they agree that it is best to part. The most moving episodes in "The Rescue" are the purely romantic ones, the conflicts of the natives, who stalk about in picturesque costumes, being of slight interest. Whether Immada and Wasub regained the throne of Woja, or lost it forever, found me indifferent. Mr. Colman's performance is not unlike his others, which is to say that he is troubled and perplexed in the way that has brought him renown. Far more interesting is the presence of Lily Damita, as Mrs. Travers. She is beautiful, glamorous, and expressive, though she is not happily cast as a conservative Englishwoman struggling against love. Instead, Miss Damita suggests one who would welcome love with open arms, if not smile seductively to speed its arrival. She is a most interesting newcomer. The Woe of Motherhood. "The Case of Lena Smith" reveals Esther Ralston as a tragic actress, and an impressive one. The picture is unusual and defies conventional rules of popular success, but this very quality will make it all the more acceptable to the minority. It is a story of pre-war Vienna, or rather it purports to be no story at all but, instead, "the biography of a woman." As you know, biographies do not always progress in well-ordered grooves, nor do they round off in a machine-made ending, so it is no surprise to find Lena in the last reel defeated, heart-broken, staring at life in dumb despair. Her story begins before she comes to Vienna from the country, where the devotion of the peasant Stefan should have kept her there for her own good. But she forsakes the prospect of unhappiness with a man she doesn't love in order to come to the city, where she is seen as a servant in the household of the Hofrats. The exactions of censorship would have us believe that Lena is secretly married to the Hofrats' son, a frivolous young officer, but this is nonsense. It doesn't really matter who is the father of her child. It is the frantic efforts of Lena to keep her child, in the face of humiliation and persecution, that give the narrative its unusual quality. This quality is one of quiet majesty, wholly devoid of maudlin sentimentality, or any effort to capture easy sympathy. It has the steady march of Greek tragedy instead of calculated plotting. When finally Lena steals her boy from a penal institution, where he had been wrested from her on the grounds of illegitimacy,