Screenland (Nov 1925–Apr 1926)

C[ 'The Green Archer", a very successful picture, may have been scorned because it was a serial, but it had invention and intense dramatic interest. reporter who is assigned aver the story. these movie newspaper reporters! Your correspondent has spent far too many /ears of his life in newspaper offices without ever suspecting what daredevils rubbed shoulders with him daily. The particular example in "The Scarlet Strea\" faces instant and unpleasant death on the average of three times in each episode, only to turn the tables on the villains in a way which would be miraculous if we _ didn't know about such movie wiles as trick shots, slow cameras and stunt actors. In fact, in its efforts to be thrilling, this picture lays it on so thick that it destroys the very illusion it tries to create, so that when we see a train crash into an automobile in which are the hero and the villain, our only reaction is one of speculation as to how much the shot has cost the producer. However, one mustn't be too hard on a serial. It isn't, as a rule, built for plausibility, and when I watched the reporter climb from a racing car onto a runaway train on which the heroine was held captive by the gang, I could almost hear the cheering and whistling with -which the patrons in the little Long Island town would greet this hair-raising stunt. The fact that the inventor, knowing of the gang's intentions, didn't summon police protection, or that the hero walked infri mi • , , • M. AHene Ray, the girl inspiration of into the villains lair "The Green Archer". G[ Firearms, danger, -daring " The Green Archer " was the same solid food that made the movies what they are today. without first making provision for getting out, comes under the legal head of irrelevant and immaterial. "The Scarlet Strea\" is built for thrills, and the serial addicts won't miss an episode of it. Jack Daugherty and Lola Todd play the leading roles. Pathe has a new one, too, which will be on the screens about the time you are reading this. It's called "Casey of the Coast Guard". George O'Hara is Casey, an Ensign in command of one of the Guard's fleet of patrol boats. He is known as the terror of the smugglers, but that doesn't stop a band of them from trying to bring in diamonds and dope, duty-free. Casey is engaged to a charming deb., played by Helen Ferguson. Naturally, she becomes embroiled in the mystery and the shooting. ] There is a bit of restraint in this one which makes it a little more see-able by those who aren't confirmed serial fiends. There's action enough, heaven knows, what with murders, kidnappings and brawls; and smuggling is the least of the evil things practiced by the gang; but the events are logical in the main and the thrills aren't always brought about by impossibly heroic and villainous people doing impossible things. In fact, "Casey" is more on the order of an outand-out melodrama done in thirteen reels instead of six Of course, serials, like other brands of movie fare, are concocted to make money for the concocters; and I can't help but feel that "Casey", though , George O'Hara, as "Casey of the Coast Guard", fought for the technic that won him artistic success in "The Sea Beast". much better built than "The Scarlet Strea\", has made a mistake in aspiring above its class, and that the cheers and stamping of feet (joyous sounds to the movie-palace owner!) will be much more vociferous when Jack rescues the inventor's daughter by knocking out five burly (Continued on page 92) 59