The Billboard 1923-10-20: Vol 35 Iss 8 (1923-10-20)

Ue OCTOBER 20, 1928 The Billboard 61 —" | REVIEWS By SHUMLIN “VALLEY OF LOST SOULS” An Independent State-Rights Picture rhis is a cheap ttle thriller about murder and love in the great North woods. It is acted by a cast not particularly well known nor unusually talented. The story is drab and the direction bas not brought out any good qualities to offset the rather gruesome theme. Murder—coldblooded, criminal murder—is the principal theme of **The Valley of Lost Souls’. murderer kills so that he may rob. He kilie three or four people, and each killing je depleted in the picture. The murderer is led mad, but even insanity fs no excuse for t repeated Gisplay of scenes of brutal killing. It is very bad taste. Victor Sutherland, Muriel Kingsland and Anne Hamilton are the featured actors. Sutherland the bero, a member of the Canadian mounted police le is an ordinary screen hero, with no claim to bistrionic ability. Miss Kingsland : the demure heroine; how she got that way matter for conjecture, Decidedly she never won a beauty prize, and her performance js little enough compensation for ber appear + . rhe Valley of Lost Souls” takes its name {r a superstition among the natives of a4 certein corner of the Canadian woods. A stump blower bad been murdered, and after he was dead a series of other killings occurred in thr valler. The subsequent murders were laid t the ghost of the stumpblower. As a matter of fact—and no secret is made of this—all the killings are the dee@s of a villainous trappe and bootlegger. A mounted policeman arrives on the scene to investigate the murders. He falls in love with the young sister of one of the victims, with whom the murderer fs The policeman suspects the trapper, and engages bim as his guide for a trip to the cabin of the deceased stumpbiower, The guilty man plans to do away with the policeman and dynamites the cabin, but the policeman escapes death. Then the trapger hbies himself back to his hut, enticing the heroine there. Before he can get away bis presence is mede known to the beroine’s old father, and be, aided by another policeman, attacks the but. Then the hero arrives on the scene, rescues the girl and captures the villain. “The Valley of Lost Souls’’ should entertain all blood-thirsty cbfldren. Direction by Cary! S. Fleming. Produced by Independent Pictures Corporation for Staterights distribution. “THE SPANISH DANCER” A Paramount Picture killer's also in love. In a last desperate effort to put over Pols Negri, Famous Players-Lasky has poured a load of coin in the production of ‘The Spanish Dancer’’, The money shows up in the shape of fashion-show costuming, big sets, eome ch look very stagey, and mob scenes. As far as dramatic value is concerned ‘‘The Spanish Dancer” is not such a much. It has been directed with a heavy, awkward hand, not with one-tenth of the showmanship of Ernst Lubitsch, who directed Mary Pickford’s ‘Rosita’’, based same story. picture, in my estimation, will not serve to regain for Pola Negri the ground she has lost with the public since she was brought to this country. It will be liked by those who still like her, and disliked by those who don't; 1 doubt very much that it will win back ber old admirers or gain new ones, The trouble with “The Spanish Dancer’’ is that the fash and glitter chokes the life out of the drama. The plot has little chance in the competition with the pretentious scenes. Wa'lace Beery is very good as the King, and Kathlyn Williams does splendidly as the Queen. Antonio Moreno, playing the mage lead, is very, very good indeed. He deserves to be seen more often in the pictures. Others in the cast are Gareth Hughes, Adolphe Menjou and Robert Agnew. “The Spanish Dancer” is the story of the love of a Gypsy girl for a Spanish noble, and of how they are united in love after the King's plot to get her for himself is foiled. Maritena, the Gypsy dancer, aids the bankrupt nobleman, Don Cesar de Bazan, to escape the clutches of the King's soldiers, who would put him in prison for his debts. He flees to Madrid, where, breaking an edict of the King on a feast day, be engages in 2 duel in defense of a poor boy. He is clapped into prison, and condemned to die that bight. The sensuous King, desiring her, plots to have her brought to his hunting lodge. The Qneen asks him to release Don Cesar, and he agrees, but deceitfully withholds the pardon. Courtiers plot to cause a rift between the Queen, who is French, and the King, so as to bring enmity between Spain and France. Under the King’s orders “Maritana, heavily veiled, is married to Don Cesar Just before he is to be executed, he not knowing who his bride is and she believing he is to be freed. The execution “STRANGERS OF THE NIGHT” A Metro Picture With euch onusnally fine material as Walter Hackett’s play, “Captain Applejack’’, any ordinary movie craftsman could not help but make a good picture. Fred Niblo has made an unusually, entertaining photoplay of it, but it must be said that he has not realized all of the play’s possibilities. “Captain Applejack”’, bad it been produced by a director with better dramatic insight, would have been twice as good a picture as Niblo has produced, With all due credit and justice to ‘‘Strangers of the Night’’, as it now stands completed, it is a black mark on Niblo’s record that the picture is not 100 per cent more entertaining. Where Niblo has failed ts in the delineation of the principal character, Ambrose Applejohn. In the hands of Matt Moore the part is not utilized for all the splendid comedy it contains While Moore is not an exceptional actor by any meins, it has been proven time and time again that a clever director can mold an ordinary performer into an extraordinary one. Fred Niblto has faiied utterly to mold out of the Matt Moore clay the real character of Ambrose Applejohn. In the play the chief bulwark of its charm and entertainment lay in the amazing change in Ambrose Applejehn'’s spirit and manner after he has dreamed he was a bloodthirsty pirate, which dream was induced by his discovering that the founder of the family made his fortune in that profession. Before the dream Ambrose was a temporizing, quiet, smug, self-satisfied young bachelor, but after it he became a verit ble hero of fiction, quick to act and with a touch of the swashbuckling pirate of his dream. As portrayed by Matt Moore, under Niblo’s direction, both phases of Ambrose’s character are not sharply enough drawn, and, consequently, the characterization lacks the high amusement taused in the play by the change brought on after the dream. Of the supporting cast Enid Bennett and Robert McKim give very fine performances, Others in the cast are Barbara La Mar, Otto Hoffman, Emily Fitzroy and Mathilda Brundage. “Strangers of the Night’ is a story of amazing adventures that came, unsought, upon a young man who has about decided that the only way he can enjoy any romance and love is to make his way to the outlandish corners of the world. Ambrose Applejohn is this man, and he lives with a young ward, who adores him but whom he hardly notices, and an old eunt, in a big house on the Cornish Cliffs in England. One night, just as Ambrose is going to bed, comes a knock on the door, and a woman of exotic appearance enters, carrying a box of jewels and crying to Ambrose to save her. She says that she is being pursued by Borolsky. a Bolshevik spy. Comes another knock on the door and Ambrose hides the lady. This time a strange looking man, wearing a turban and claiming to be a seer, and his wife, a middleaged woman, enter. Ther ask for shelter while their auto is being repaired. While Ambrose is out of the room they begin tapping on the walis to find a secret vault. Ambrose returns and they leave. Then Borolsky knocks on the door, but Ambrose forces him to leave. A room is provided for the strange lady, and all go to bed. But they are awakened by the noise mode in the living room by the and his wifé who have returned and are ripping open a panel in the wall. Ambrose and his ward, Poppr, rush down to the room and discover the halfopened panel left by the crooks, who have been frightened out of the house. They look in the hole and find a casket containing a parchment, yellow with age, which says that the writer was the founder of the family and a pirate, and that he has hidden jewels of great value in the house. Ambrose and Poppy decide to sit up and wait for the burglars to return. But Ambrose falls asleep and dreams that he is a bold, bad pirate, robbing, murdering and raping. When he is awakened by Poppy he finds that, unconscious-ly, he is acting slightly like the man of his dream. The rest of the picture shows in detafls rich with drama and comedy how the two sets of crooks, Borolsky and the strange woman with the jewels, and the ‘‘seer’’ and his wife, are outwitted by Poppy and Ambrose, how the two find the pirate hoard, and how Ambrose suddenly discovers that he loves Poppy and that there is plenty of romance at home without going abroad to look for ft. Produced by Louis Mayer. Metro Pictures Corporation. the “seer”? Distributed by takes place, but the bullets in the firing squad's guns are replaced by bread pel'ets by the boy whom Don Cesar befriended, and he is unharmed. At the King’s hunting lodge Maritana, now a Countess, is being attacked by the King when arrives and saves her. Just then the Queen arrives, brought there by one of the plotting noblemen, but Maritana’s quick thinking saves the King from being shown up as unfaithful to his royal mate. The reckless. changeable King, in thanks for her action, gives Maritana and Don Cesar his royal blessing and gives back to Don Cesar his patents of nobility, his lands and castle. Direction by Herbert Brenon. Distributed by Don Cesar “THE RAMBLIN’ KID” A Universal Picture Here is a corking Western,. full of pep, action and drama. While the story is conventional in type—the cowboy and the lady theme— the plot worked out skillfully, reaching a climax of dramatie fervor that is amazingly engrossing. Hoot Gibson, the star, proves in picture his unquestionable right to be classed with the top-notch stats of the cowboy class More power to him! The leading feminine role is adroixably filled by Laura La Plante, a girl whe is much more than just good look at. Others in the cast are Harold Goodwin, William Welsh, W. T. McCulley, Charles K. French, G. Raymond Nye and rol Holloway. “The Ramblin’ Kid’ is surprisingly free of the minor and major inconsistencies so many non-special pictures contain. It works up to the chief dramatic incidents smoothly an@ with much attendant detail that serves to heighten the value of the picture as a whole. It will satisfy any and every lover of the ‘“red-blooded”’ movie and please even those people to whom West ns are not the most important things in life. As the Ramblin’ Kid, Gibson plays an independent, rollicking, care-free son of the prairie, wh chief pleasures and his occasional outbursts, when he preter that he is drunk and the little cow-town near the Quarter Circle Ranch. As the annual rodeo draws near he decides to try to capture a wild mare, known at the ‘“‘gold dust maverick’’, which has been ranging the open land for some and has always evaded would-be owners. are horses shoots up He wishes to race it against the sheriff's horse, Thunderbolt, which has never been beaten. He chases and captures the mare on a stormy night which marks the arrival at the ranch of the pretty niece of the owner. The Kid is smitten with her, but when she calls him a savage brute for laughing at a cat with a tin can over its head he steers clear of her, even after he rescues her from certain death when she rides her horse into a patch of quicksand. The day of the rodeo comes around, and the owner of the Quarter Circle bets $10,000 and all his cattle against the money and cattle of the sheriff that the latter’s horse will not beat the “‘gold dust maverick"’, ridden by the Ramblin’ Kid. ‘Blackie’ Mike, the owner of a speakeasy . e and soda fountain, who also has a bet down on Thunderbolt, plots to make certain that the m: k loses by drugging the Kid. The owner of t Juarter Circle and his niece think the Kid is drunk as he rides his horse out to the starting line, stupefied by the drug administered to in a cup of coffee. But, despite the p. the Kid wins the race i Kid finds out who drugged him, and goes place to the and fm the id hits the bar-rail The Kid is ackie’s’’ When Kid falls, apparently avenge himself. owner's niece the fight ‘‘Blackie’’ and he is insults lend arrested, but is al owed to escape to the hills. He returns to the ranch corral one night, however, to say good-by to the maverick, and finds the girl waiting there for him. She tells him ‘‘Blackie’’ did not die, and also that she leves him, which scene, as ntay be suspected, closes the picture. Direction by Edward Sedzwick. Story by Earl Wayland Bowman, and scenario by E. Richard Schayer—and a mighty good job of work, too. Produced and distributed by Universal Pictures Corp. “A WOMAN OF PARIS” A United Artists’ Picture Charles Chaplin has won his way to new heights in this picture, which is as remarkable, in its way, as ‘“‘The Birth of a Nation’ when it was first released. He does not appear in the film, but his presence is felt in every foot of it. “A Woman of Paris’’ marks a new era in the movies. It answers every requirement of those who have been crying for better pictures without sacrificing any quality necessary for popular appeal All the ingredients of the popular type of movie are there, but they have been touched by the hand of a master. The story has been given a fresh treatment that is startling. It is not a particularly original story. It has been pictured many times before, but never before has it been handled as Chaplin bandled it. It is amazingly original in style. Every character is built up to sympathetically. There is no hero, no villain, no heroine—every character is portrayed with out bias, the sins which are outlined are set forth, not as intentional evil, Dut as innocent mistakes and pitiful accidents There are those who grudgingly admit the tremendous beauty of this, Chaplin's first serious drama, saying that the great mass of the public will not understand it. But 1 say that the picture is so simple, so direct that no person can fail to be vividly impressed by it. Perhaps the slow-thinking masses may feel slightly resentful that it points no moral, that it does not say ‘‘So Evil is punished and Virtue rewarded’’, but this resentment will react ‘Tpon bis return from “THE ETERNAL THREE” A Goldwyn Picture The high-sounding title of this picture refers to the trio mentioned in the song Blanche Ring and Richard Carle used to sing, i. e., the busband, the wife and lover. In this ease Marshall Neilan, who always tries to be differ the ent, makes the lover the stepson of the husband. With these three characters NeiiInn has de veloped a fair story, which is made more inter esting thru directorial treatment that is out of the ordinary. Altho Neilan’s pictures may not be world beaters they can usually be de pended on to be different. ‘‘The Eternal Three” like all the new Goldwyn picture tuously mounted; those huge be seen only in the movies, thruout, plus a ‘‘wild’’ party painfully clever. Raymond Griffith, who came into prominence , is sumpwhich can are in evidence scene that is rooms, in “Red Lights’, as the nutty detective, has another jumping-jack role in “The Eternal Three’’. He plays the lover of the triangle, the stepson of the husband. Picked up from the gutter when a little boy, Leonard Foster (the name of the character) still remains a deceit ful, ornery cuss, despite the affection and care lavished upon him by his foster father, the fa mous brain specialist, Dr. Frank R. Walters, played by Hobart Bosworth. Leonard is a lady killer, with a most engaging manner. He takes advantage of the innocence of Dr. Walters’ seeretary, Hilda Gray (Bessie Love), when, ip pique at her sweetheart, she accepts his invitation to attend a party. Poor Hilda, ashamed, tells her sweetheart that she can never see him again. Dr. Walters comes back from a vacation with a wife, a much younger woman (Claire Windsor), with whom he is very much in love. Dr. Walters’ heavy practice and the demands made upon him by suffering humanity leave him no time to attend to his wife. Lonely for attention his wife succumbs to the personal fascination of Leonard, and they plan to elone. Dr. Walters sees them embraeing. He controls is rage, feeling that it is partly his fault. Then Leonard is injured in an accident, and Dr. Walters has to operate upon him. This timehonored situation is handled in the usual manner, with the operation a successful one. the hospital, just the day before he plans to elope, Leonard is confronted by Dr. Walters, the brother and the sweetheart of the girl he betrayed. He denics the accusation, but when his stepfather beat him mercilessly with a heavy whip admits his guilt, Leonard is made to see how shamefully he has acted, and, in what is the best scene in the picture, tells his foster parent that he will go away and not trouble him any more. <As he leaves he calls Mrs. Walters and tells her that he is no good, a cheat and that he is leaving her, advising her to go to her husband. He leaves, downcast and forlorn, but on the street he soon forgets his troubles when he sees @ pretty girl walking alone. The ending of the picture is decidedly un satisfactory, the husband and wife agreeing te part without an explanation. It would net have betrayed the rules of logic to have them effect a reconciliation. There is one scene in the picture which is in decidedly bad taste and wholly unnecessary to the plot. That scene shows the wife, lonely for her husband, going to his lx vom at night ia her prettiest lingerie and waiting in his bed for bim. When, at 3 a.m., he bas not come to bed she tears out of the room in petty rage at ber disappointment. This scene should come out. Directed by Marshall Neilan and Frank Urson. Distributed by Goldwyn-Cosmopolitan. to the picture’s benefit, for it will induce discussion. The story is paramount in “A Woman of Paris’. Every scene has been mounted perfectly, but Chaplin has not stooped to flashy, unreal settings. The title role is played by Edna Purviance. She is well suited to the part. Adolphe Menjou, who has always played villains, gives a performance that provokes expressions of astonishment. Tle plays @ sensuous, highly refined Parisian man-abent-town, and makes of him an admirable racter. Carl Miller is good as the weak-willed boy and Lydia Knott is fine as his mother. Marie St. Clair and John Millet determine to leave the small town in which they live, and go to Paris to be married. Marie waits at the railroad station for who has gone home for his baggage. When he enters his home, John finds his father has just died, Tnable to leave his mother alone, he tells Marie over the telephone that he will have to postpone the journey. She misunderstands him, thinks he has changed his mind about marrying ber and leaves for Paris alone. A year later she is the mistress of the wealthy Pierre Revel She lives in luxury, but when she learns that Revel is engaged to marry another woman, she rebels at the thought of living on with him. Accidentally one day she meets John Millet in Paris. He is studying (Continued on page 62) John, »