Screenland (Oct 1923-Mar 1924)

in REVIEW Illustrated by Gov arrubias Mount Sinai failed to impress me. Here de Mille moved in a mysterious way his wonders to perform, his methods strangely resembling an exhibition of Pain's fireworks. On the other hand, the Red Sea trick camerawork plainly impressed the New York audiences. Doubtless it will further impress the hinterland. The acting throughout The Ten Commandments fails to reach any noteworthy heights. Theodore Roberts has only opportunities to pose briefly as Moses, Charles de Roche is physically massive but histrionically inadequate as Rameses while Julie Faye is a mere Winter Garden fillie as Pharaoh's storm and strife, as Anna Prophater would say. The one person to stand out of the Biblical section is Estelle Taylor, who contiibutes a surprising bit as Miriam, Moses' sister, discreetly described by the program as being "guilty of abominations." As chief worshipper of the Calf of Gold in what apparently was the first thing resembling a cabaret scene in history, Miss Taylor supplied enough passionate ecstasy to make her performance the outstanding thing of the ultraspectacle. Acting of Modern Half Passable f\'EN with Nita Naldi as the Eurasian in the modern half, the acting is but passable. Nor is the de Mille direction in any way noteworthy here, save in one scene, the aftermath of the church collapse. Here de Mille touched a high spot. Very likely The Teii Commandments will make money. It looks to me like a box office picture. As for creating "an epic picture that would portray and satisfy the deeper craving of mankind," as the press agents have said. The Ten Commandments is just another lengthy picture, over-loaded with huge sets, thousands of extras and tremendous expenditures. When The Ten Commandments was in course of shooting and cutting, the Paramount powers-that-be were very sensitive about the fact that the prologue alone had cost over a million. But now they are referring cheerfully to the fact that The Ten Commandments lan its expenses to $1,500,000. Still, as the souvenir program of The Ten Commandments says, most of the picture was made "out in the desert where Bul-Bul, the nightingale, alone breaks the stillness by his song!" WThe Month's Best Performances 0 Buster Keaton in Our H ospitality I The Shepherd King is Dull n contrast to The Ten Commandments is that other screenplay built upon the Old Testament, The Shepherd King, produced by William Fox in Italy and the Holy Land. More directly it is the work of J. Gordon Edwards, the director who turned out many an ornate and beaded Theda Bara spectacle. This was once a stage play in which Wright Lorimer used to barnstorm the provinces, a sort of jitney Ben-Hur. Briefly, it deals with the calling of David to deliver the land from the Philistines and has its climax in David's triumph over the giant, Goliath. The whole thing is handled here with a minimum of expense and imagination. Save for the backgrounds, which now and then look like authentic shots of the Holy Land, there is little to recommend the production, either in the inadroit direction or the over-profuse acting of the Italian principals. Except for Violet Mersereau the cast is wholly Latin. And I can not see any special reason for sending Miss Mersereau all the way to Italy to play Michal, who is very colorless, is class of 1910. fflCormal Myers plays the Countess Fedora in Slave of Desire, the weak version of Balzar's The Magic Skin. the beloved of David. Miss Mersereau, a member of the Wampas "baby stars," I David Would Be Debarred in 1924 f the immortal combat between David and Goliath occurred as Mr. Edwards here pictures it, David would have been debarred from fighting in practically every state in the Union. True, David got the decision and his opponent's head, but the thing was pretty unsportsmanlike. The more the motion picture attempts to portray the Old Testament, the more it reveals the folk of the Biblical characters as being as hard hearted as the owner of a lot of defective pennyin-the-slot machines. The Shepherd King is just another sleep producing film. It lacks everything. Personally, I managed to. get more enjoyment out of Buster Keaton's new comedy, Our Hospitality, than I could extract from anything else cinematic during the past month. The low level of screenplays can easily be explained for, with the coming of the holidays each year, the producers unload their worst pictures. Motion pictures draw poorly at this time, anyway, and the exhibitors have no come back. The producers merely point to the calendar as their alibi. Our Hospitality Too Long 'ur Hospitality has one serious weakness. It is entirely too long, running over six reels. Yet, the opus has amazingly humorous qualities in spots. The he:o, no other than Monsieur Keaton, starts south to take possession of his ancestral home. The time is 1830 and the young man makes the trip over an amazing one-track railroad which invests the adventure 51