Screenland (Apr-Sep 1924)

beauty from purely human motives. Still, the film version is adequate in its telling and pretty satisfactory in its direction. There are some scenes, as those of the Metropolitan Opera House, which fall down but, on the whole, Black Oxen has real merit. Not a little of this merit comes from Corinne Griffith's performance of the Countess Zatianny. For years I have been predicting great things for this orchidarious star but, of late, I had begun to wonder if I had been dazzled rather than discerning. But her Zatianny makes me believe again. Her performance is finely attuned to catch the renewed beauty of the belle of yesterday. Without question it is a striking portrayal — one that will establish Miss Griffith among the first half dozen feminine film favorites. Conway Tearle is pictorial as the newspaper columnist who falls in love with the countess but there is more of the actor than of reality about his work. Still it will suffice "according to our accepted movie standards. Another surprise of Black Oxen is a little flapper, Clara Bow, who first did a bit in Down to the Sea in Ships. This Miss Bow, a sort of untamed and cutiefied Dot Gish, has a boysterous freshness. She will surprise you again, or I miss my guess. Conrad Nagel and one British comedy private strongly resembling 01' Bill of The Better 'Ole and played by Syd Chaplin. Moreover, his Siberia is alongside a seaport where soldiers embark and disembark, all of which confuses me as to its exact location. Still, if Neilan had told a story well, I would forgive all this. The story isn't much, the love of Monsieur Nagel for a little daughter of an ex-nobleman, but even that is swallowed up in over-artistic photography. At the end of the sixth reel, I hardly knew how any of the characters really looked, what with arty shadows and vague long shots. As you may gather, The Rendezvous left me cold. Except for one item, the playing of little Lucille Ricksen as the girl. Here is another young actress with real possibilities. As for Nagel, he is his usual saccharine self . EL Through the Movie Hopper I Wild Oranges Has Color still look upon King Vidor as one of our best directors — and his visualization of Joseph Hergesheimer's Wild Oranges is a melodrama done with color and intelligence. Hergesheimer wrote a picturesque novel in Wild Oranges, of a girl and her nerve-wracked father living in a lonely old house in the wilds of the Florida coast, with only a half wit as a servant. This idiot is more than a servant, for he is a homicidal maniac with a mad desire for the girl. Into this maze of events drifts a wealthy young chap in his yacht. The result is a curiously, absorbing thriller. Vidor has caught all the atmosphere and made an excellent screenplay. I call particular attention to the maniac, a half pathetic, half sinister hulk of a man. This new figure to the gallery of celluloid people is admirably played by Charles Post. The girl is adequately done by Virginia Valli but I can not reconcile myself to Frank Mayo as the hero. I Second-Hand Russian Stuff was disappointed in every way by Marshall Neilan's much heralded The Rendezvous. There are several manifest reasons for the failure of The Rendezvous. Principally, the weakness lies in the fact that Neilan is handicapped by at least a second-hand idea of the late empire of the Czar Nicholas. Secondly, because the story is developed from a plot trick, rather than from a basic idea. This trick lies in the way the little heroine, whose eardrums have been broken by a renegade brute, unknowingly locks the scoundrel in a lonely tomb. His cries are unheard — and he is left to die slowly and wretchedly. Neilan sees Russia as a vast stretch of snow swept land peopled by very good Russians, who are former members of the nobility, very bad Russians, who are 0 Charlie Ray albandits and lows himself en reds, a lot of tirely loo much American sol film in Miles diers led by Standish. Lomer Croy has expressed himself as pleased with the film version of his West of the Water Tower but somehow I think that Mr. Croy was prejudiced by the check for $25,000 he received for the movie rights. I know that such a check might well upset my perspective. This story of a middle western town — with its narrow moral prejudices and its Rotary Club outlook, such as it is in inland America — has been passed through the cinema mill. It has come out a regular movie. Mr. Croy originally had a story of some reality — i. _e., a boy, oppressed by a bigoted father, a minister, comes to love the daughter of the town atheist. The so-called moral code is broken and the boy brings the structure of his life toppling about his ears. But the Gods of the Cinema, goaded by the censors, say that our movie characters can not sin. Thus the boy and girl who gave way before their adolescent passions are made to believe that they are married. But the keeper of the local pool parlor who arranged the ceremony later tells them that the thing is a fake. Thus the town turns upon them as per schedule and yet the censors are satisfied. Later the marriage turns out to have been according to Hoyle, the pool promoter having lied for some unexplained reason, and all is well in Pennsylvania, Ohio and other censor centers. In making the story into celluloid sausage, most of the life has been extracted from the characters. They now move about rather aimlessly, which is natural, since they all have an eye upon the censor's scissors. Still Glenn Hunter has excellent emotional moments as the distraught boy and Ernest Torrence has brief flashes as the ministerial father. But May McAvoy seems to me to be wholly ineffective as the girl. Throughout the whole stretch of film, she does not disclose one glimpse of reality. Gloria too Exuberant c, 'URiousLY, the New York critics, who frowned upon Gloria Swanson's exuberant Zaza, have given its successor, The Humming Bird, their stamp of approval. Yet her Toinette in this opus is about twice as unrestrained. All of which shows you never can tell. The Humming Bird was a stage play by Maude Fulton. [Continued on page 95] 58