Screenland (Oct 1923-Mar 1924)

Scott's The Talisman, it sets out to be a sequel to Robin Hood, being the further adventures of Richard after the Earl of Huntingdon (alias Doug) sought justice and liberty in Sherwood Forest. If you recall Robin Hood you will remember that Richard Cour de Leon dropped out of sight in the middle of the spectacle, to reappear briefly at the finish. Here he creates with a. workmanlike and deft touch. Six Days is Cheap c Glass Crusade Watch for CLBurlesque the Number I remember it, I thought Beery was darned good in Robin Hood. I take that back now. He is pretty dreadful in Richard the Lion Hearted. And the picture is done so cheaply that the crusade seems to have been entirely "shot" through glass. The producers seem to have courted comparison, for there are a couple of borrowed shots from Robin Hood showing Doug and Beery. Pretty much all of Richard the Lion Hearted is faked. I think that Frank Woods, the chief of Associated Authors, made it in his backyard. Every now and then I thought I could see the family clothesline. I'll bet they had a terrible time to keep the neighbors' children from stealing the spiked helmets belonging to the army of three Saracens. To be serious, there is a limit to this tricking of scenes by photographing scenes painted on glass. Otherwise it would be possible to do a 1924 version of Griffith's Intolerance with three extras, an artist, some glass and a camera. The remainder of the cast of Richard the Lion Hearted ought to be darned good in charades. of SCREENLAND March ©,77ie brightest and funniest issue of any motion picture magazine ever published // Winter Comes is Compelling .1 is pretty late to comment upon the William Fox production of the A. S. M. Hutchinson novel, // Winter Comes. I honestly enjoyed this screenplay hugely. The novel itself was melodramatic, sentimental and midVictorian, all qualities of exceeding screen effectiveness. The film verions has stuck with absolute fidelity to every detail of the career of Marke Sabre. Here is a characterization of cumulative power, sweeping to a splendid emotional climax. You will find nothing finer in the whole realm of cinema acting. I'll whisper right now that it will find a place on my year's list of best performances. The sub-titles have been carefully selected from the novel and used with fine discretion. Indeed, the whole production is excellent, well acted all through and sincerely directed by Harry Millarde. This Millarde surprised me. The result is an absorbing screen drama, crammed with humanizing detail and made doubly compelling by the superbly sustained performance of Percy Marmont as Puzzlehead Sabre. True, he has turned out screnically effective sob stuff before, as in Over the Hill, but his touch was primitive. 52 CEdna Purviance plays with fine poise and shading in A Woman of Paris. HARLES BRABIN, who made that gem of the soil, Driven, developed Elinor Glyn's stab at sensationalism, Six Days, into a film.. This is a story of a pretty girl and a young chap entombed in the desolate and deserted trenches of Flanders fields for six days. I never read Mrs. Glyn's novel and so I do not know whether or not she had the forsight to entomb a chaperone, a priest, with the young people. Anyway, there's a clergyman in the film, so Will Hays can breathe easy once more. Six Days strikes us as cheap sensationalism. Maybe you'll like it. It depends upon you. Personally, Brabin seems lost when his characters wear something over their suspenders. Here Corinne Griffith makes her escape from servitude at Vitagraph as the girl and doesn't do very well. Frank Mayo is the man — and there is no actor for whom I care less. Neilan Film Unsavory M arshall Neilan's The Eternal Three has a cheap note all through. The plot concerns a surgeon absorbed in his work, his pretty second wife and his son by his first marriage, a flip youth who isn't above taking advantage of his father's absences. Unsavory stuff, without anything to lift it above the basement. Very badly acted, too, particularly by Raymond Griffith, who bounds around like one of Doug's unforgettably merry men. I imagine Mickey Neilan wrote the continuity of this on his cuff on his way home from a Hollywood party. Too bad it didn't get to the laundry. Old-fashioned Vitagraph Drama 'nly a moment or so ago I spoke of Charlie Chaplin's trip backward in quest of technique. This is as nothing compared to J. Stuart Blackton's recent research work at Vitagraph. He had just made On the Banks of the Wabash, based upon Paul Dresser's song. If this isn't an exact duplicate of the Vitagraph technique of ten years ago, I'll autograph two hundred photographs for John Bunny tomorrow. Commodore Blackton has even been able to duplicate the exact historic Vitagraph photography. Some Quaint Novelites Still, Blackton has achieved some quaint novelties. For instance, it comes with rather a shock to us to see a villian trying to ruin Mary Carr. On the Banks of the Wabash has everything to make 'em tear up the seats in 1914 — and to put 'em asleep in 1924.