The Billboard 1924-11-01: Vol 36 Iss 44 (1924-11-01)

REVIEWS By SEUMLIN “THE SILENT WATCHER” First National Director Frank Lloyd has produced a rm rkably fine motion picture in The Silent Watcher. It is, in this reviewer’s cpinion, one of the most engrossing photodramas of the year. If half the pictures were 60 per cent as good as The Silent Watcher, the motion picture industry could claim first-rank classification among the arts. And that is not to say that the picture hasn’t an unusually strong popular appeal. With Vitagraph’s The Clean Heart I would say The Silent Watcher is one of the two best pictures shown so far this season. It is packed full of delightful humor, tense drama and suspense, and characterizations which are so real that they startle a person used to considering all film characters as merely heroes, heroines and villains. I say that The Silent Watcher is next door to greatness. Bessie Love and Glenn Hunter are the chief actors, and both of them give superlatively fine performances. Miss Love, in particular, does the best acting of her career, which is something I am forced to say every time I see her in a new picture. To my way of thinking she is far and away the finest little tragic actress in the pictures. Lillian Gish isn’t one, two, three with her. Miss Love has the power of tangling my heartstrings up into a knot with one look, so perhaps my opinion of her ability is prejudiced, but I cannot see how any normal person can resist her personality. Hobart Bosworth, Gertrude Astor, George Nicholls, Aggie Herring, Lionel Belmore, DeWitt Jennings, Alma Bennett and Brandon Hurst complete the cast. The picture was made from a novel by Mary Roberts Rhineheart, called The Altar on the Hill, a superior adaptation, having been written by J. G. Hawks. Whoever wrote the subtitles should be credited with a 100 per cent score. They are perfect, each and every one of them. Glenn Hunter appears as young Joe Roberts, secretary to a big lawyer and politician, John Steele, who is Joe’s ideal. Joe is married, and Mary, his wife, doesn’t think Steele is the great man her husband considers him. Steele runs for Congress <nda Joe works with him in the campaign. Steele, whose wife is a callous creature, always running off to Europe, falls into an affair with an actress and sets her up in an apartment. He gets Joe to hire the ppartment in his own name, and Joe also oar a revolver for his boss’ protection, 1ich Steele leaves in the apartment of his mistress. After a time, right in the heat of the campaign, Steele breaks with the actress, and she kills herself with the revolver Joe purchased. Joe is arrested, opponents of Steele hoping to make him admit that Steele lived with the actress in the apartment, but Joe remains loyal to his boss, refusing to bring his name into the mess, taking all the blame himself. Mary is led to believe that Joe has been untrue to her, and he is unable to tell her the truth, but insists that Steele tell her. But Steele’s campaign manager, fearing that if Mary knows the truth she will tell everybody and ruin Steele’s chances for election, offers to tell Mary the real facts and then refrains from doing so. Mary leaves the house and goes to live at a boarding house, and when Joe is released from jail a few days later, there being no reason to hold him, he goes home and finds her gone. For days, in a high fever and daze, he stays around the house, and on election day, after casting his vote for his boss, goes “home and prepares to end his life, feel ing that Mary will never return to him eele wins the election, and then learns fr mm his campaign manager that Mary has not been told the truth. He quickly goes to Mary, tells her everything and the two hurry to her house. She finds Joe on the porch, sunk in a tired slumber, and they are reconciled. This barely outlined story doesn’t begin to tell the ! the picture contains. The is a thoroly. “THE SPEED SPOOK” Right Barr-State Johnny Hines is a low-brow comedian, and, while one of his recent productions, was rated a winner at the box-office, it is a matter of strorg Conductor 1492, donbt whether even the low-brow audiences will consider his The Speed Spook thing better than just © wretty . Hines ba sie plot rs the but the crud the scarcity of laughable the barrel of gags with which the feature is literally plastered make The Spook pretty low-grade ore. Hines pictures need are and a couple of d-pendable gag writers. The story of the smali town, picture is pretty good, of racing motor cars. Barlow is in love Speed U What the Grey, a good director picture is set in a to which comes Hines as “Blue Streak” Barlow, a champion driver The Billboard 348 N e | im * -@RGUS TeKer, Saag 548 N ASHLAND AVE, CHICAGO. Sp " ROLLGE FOLDED Ta TSK _S | 28 YEARS } EXPERIENCE f AT YOUR d SERVICE Co | # DIAGRAM ano ADVANCE: SALE-RACKS.. BEST FOR THE MONEY = QUICKEST DELIVERY » CORRECTNESS GUARANTEED To one of these ends he works out a freak auto, which he drives lickity-split thru the town every day religiously and works up the curiosity of the natives. “The car is apparently driverless, Barlow being concealed from view by a fake engine hood. Barlow also contrives to fall upon the information that Sheriff West’s opponents for re-election are planning to cheat him out of the honor by printing fake ballots, which will replace the real ones. After a few reels of pretty good action and laughs the end comes with the villains meted out justice, all by the brightness of “Biue Streak” Barlow, the rightfully elected sheriff winning a new term, Betty selling all her cars and Barlow winning her promise to wed him. few of the actors who help to do all the fore going are Faire Binney, Edmund Breese, Eugene Keith and Frank Losee Breese has a part in which he is vastly superior. Keith is, very good in a character role. The picture was directed by Charles Hines, with subtitles—and quite nifty they are, too—by Ralph Spence c. C. Burr produced it and it is released by State-right exchanges. “THE GREAT DIAMOND MYSTERY” Fox Shirley Mason, William Collier, Jr., and Philo McCullough make of The Great Diamond Mystery, with its rambling, thinly-spread story, a better than average middle-grade love-and-mystery picture. Young Collier always gets a lot of heart interest into his work, and McCullough is as slick a villain as you can find among the younger screen actors. Miss Mason is no wonder, but she does well enough in the leading role. The story of The Great Diamond Mystery is a complicated affair, the greater part of the picture being given over setting the plot and the bie kick coming close to the finish, with a surprise at the very end. It starts weak and finishes strong. The heroine is a young writer who has a novel, called The Great Diamond Mystery, accepted and published by a publishe e who doesn’t mean well by her. She is engaged to marry a young chap whose uncle is very wealthy, but when the uncle finds out he disowns his nephew, who goes to work for a diamond-selling concern. This concern is composed of two partners, who have been gypping customers for some time and have accumulated quite a store of gems, which are kept in the home of one of the partners. Our hero is accused of stealing one big diamond and loses his job. He calls at the home of the senior partner and demands that his name be cleared, storming out in a rage when his request is refused. Then the other partner enters, and a few seconds later a shot rings out and the senior partner is found dead. Our young hero is arrested, charged with murder and sentenced to be electrocuted. The heroine determines to save him, and, working on the theory that the murderer will return to the scene of the crime, she rents the home of the murdered man and goes there to live. She employs the late owner’s butler, who comes around begging for work. Then the younger partner in the diamond concern visits her and is noticed looking for something in the living room when he is left alone for a moment. This awakens the herone’s suspicion, and she sets the butler to watch him whenever he comes to the house. On the very night when the hero is to have his life ended the villain comes to the house, continues his search around the living room, while wealth of incident and detail the heroine and the butler watch him Silent Watcher picture any audience will enjoy covers the hiding place of the from a secluded alcove, and at last disdiamonds, which pour out upon the floor. As he scrambles for them the butler attacks him and renders him unconscious. Then the surprise finish, for the butler pockets the jewels, his visage changes to a criminal hardness, and he holds the heroine at a distance with a revolver. But the police break in, capture the butler, and he confesses he is guilty of the murder. The news is forwarded to the penitentiary in time to save the hero’s life. “THE BORDER LEGION” fair himself isn’t bed and the Famous Players-Lasky style of the production and incidents amon When about 19 assorted pioncer West. eruers were killed off in a previous p: ture made from another story by aane I thought a record had been set that would stand untouched for all time, but The Border Ll. gion erases all vast pe~formances in this respect In i, the only people left alive at the final fadeout are the hero and the heroine—the killing of about two-score people by cne meths with Betty West, who runs an auto-selling or another going to make of The Border agency in the .own, and sets out to help her business along and also, on the side, to ai@ her father win re-election as sheriff. i Legion a snappy picture—rough, reckless, crude and colorful, just as the o'd West was, if Zane Grey can be believed, and he lays claim to the narrative being based upon actual facts. Antonio Moreno and Helene Chadwick are the feature ‘players, but it is into the capable hands of Rockliffe Fellowes, actor among actors, that the choice acting part falls. Despite the handicap of being too pleasant looking, too clean shaven and much too friendly for the bloodthirsty character he plays, Fellowes overcomes all obstacles and just naturally takes the picture away from the featured players. Moreno has a wishy-washy sort of role that he does his best with, but all his efforts do not make the character a very heroic hero. Miss Chadwick, too, is just fair. She plays a young girl of the riproaring West, but never succeeds in appearing more native to the time and the place than a vacationing young lady from an Eastern finishing school. Of the other actors, a choice bit of rough-neck buffoonery is supplied by Edward Gribbon, while Charles Ogle, Gibson Gowland, James Corey and Luke Cosgrove are quite satisfactory in their parts. William K. Howard directed the picture and selected a number of impressive locations among the Western mountains as the physical background to the action. Fellowes plays the part of Kells, the vicic US leader of a vicious gang, called the Border Le yn, which terrorized a certain section of ‘the West in the early days. In a small community in the hills live a girl, Joan Randle, and a young fellow in love with her, Jim Cleve. The latter quarrels with Joan and goes away to join up with the Border Legion, leaving her a note explaining his destination. She regrets the quarrel and rides after him, hoping to cause him to abandon his intentions. But she does not find him, instead being picked up by the gang leader, Kells, who likes her looks and just kid— her. He takes her to his cabin, and, er ge tting nicely likkered up, attempts to seduce her, but she grabs his gun and shoots him in the gizzard. This put him hors de combat for about a day, during which time Joan nurses him and meets up with Cleve, who has become a member of the band. While she and Cleve plot to steal away the revived Kells starts his gang for a certain mining community which he plans to clean up. He forces Joan to go along and Cleve must do the same. The plan to wipe out the mining camp and steal all its gold goes awry when a stool pigeon member of the gang gives the game away, and there is a shooting melee in which only four of the gang, including Kells, are able to escape alive. There is a wild ride in the night, and a final spasm of killing when the remaining four gangsters, set to fighting over the possession of Joan, bump each other off. Cleve and Joan are united as the dying Kells gets off a last melodramatic speech. “ROARING RAILS” Producers You can depend upon getting plenty of action and sentiment in any picture produced by Hunt Stromberg, and Roaring Rails, with Harry Carey starred, is no exception to the rule. You can also be sure of finging a good measure of looseness in story construction in any Hunt Stromberg melodrama, and in this respect also Roaring Rails follows the general rule. But action and thrills and sentimental appeal are what you want in a melodrama, and even holes big enough to put your foot thru in the story are insignificant when these three elements are there in large quantities. Roaring Rails, virile, half-way sensible motion picture that it is, ought to please any audience that would turn up its collective nose at a picture like Barthelmess’ The Enchanted Cottage, and Mr. Stromberg should give thanks that such audiences are greatly in the majority. As its title suggests, the picture is a story about railroad life. It begins with a brief and stagey -prolog, showing Bill sill Benson, hero, fighting to make the world safe for democracy in France, and becoming the foster parent of a small French boy, motherless, who later is known as Little Bill. After this short prolog we are reintroduced to Big and Little Bill as they are proceeding over a mountain nass in a train of which Big rill is the engineer. Little Bill gets into the engine cab and takes Big Bill’s mind off running the train. There is wreck, u monstrously wicked wreck, out of which one tvould hardly expect any passenger on the train, let alone an engineer, to s’rvive tut, as a sone following right after shows, Little Bill wasn't even scratched, while Big Bill received eon 4 a broken arm. For this wreck Big Bill has his job taken away from him and ts blacklisted on every railroad in the country. With the little lad along, Bill goes bumming over the country looking for NOVEMBER 1, 192; work. He finally gets a job working «a a day laborer helping to lay the track of a new line, which, as may be expected is supposed to be finished on a certai; date or else some kind of an option i lost by the railroad company. And, a may be expected, there is an official of rival company who is doing his utmos to retard the building of the road so that the option will be lost. There is likewis a heroine, a young lady who runs a lunchroom, with whom Big Bill falls in love. The villain blows up a bridge and Little Bill has his eyes so badly burned that he will go blind unless taken East to a specialist at once. Big Bill hasn't any money, so he goes to the boss on the job and begs for help, but is turned down Then the villain kills the boss, and Bil) offers to take the blame for the murder if the real killer will take care of Litth Bill's eyes. The deal is made and Biv Bill is thrown into jail for the crime he dj not commit. He is sentenced to die, bu: the real murderer doesn’t bother seeine to the child’s eyes. The railroad is finished and the first engine is about to run thru to fulfill the terms of the option, when a fire is started in the forest which no engineer will dare run thru. But Big Bill, with the aid of the girl, escapes from jail, jumps on the train, start t runs it into the forest fire, stops it, jumps off, rescues Little Bill, starts it again and reaches the destination safely. There he is acclaimed and also captures the villain, who is thrust into the arms of the law. Everything ends happily. The cast includes Edith Roberts, Wallace MacDonald, Frank Hagney and little Frankie Daro. Stromberg directed, besides writing the story. No other writer, I feel sure, could conceive of a villain so utterly heartless as the one Stromberg created, as played by Frank Hagney. He is a real bogey man. “MAN FROM GOD'S COUNTRY” Goldstone-State Right An ordinary cowboy melodrama in every way, The Man From God's Country is ordinarily good. If you could draw a chart which would say how many bad points a cheap Western could have and still be rated as a fairly good picture, this one would come well within the requirements. It is a good picture as they go, with a hero, a heroine, a_ villain, shooting and horse-riding and plenty of flaws. It might be a lot peppier, as it drags badly in the middie, but that part is given over to building up the love interest, and you can’t expect much action in that. William Fairbanks, Dorothy Revier and Lew Meehan are the trio who fill the main parts. Fairbanks is the hero, Dorothy is the girl in the case, and Lew Meehan is the buckaroo who gnashes his teeth at their affair of the heart and tries his doggonest to break things up All three could be much better actors and not hurt the picture any. The hero rides into the picture from some far place, all smiles, to rescue the fair Carmelita from the obnoxious caresses of the villain, who is the foreman on the Bar None Ranch. The location is below the Mexican border, and Carmelita is attired in a Spanish scarf to show her nationality. he hero, who is known as the Ramblin’ Kid, decides to “locate around these parts, pardner,” his decision largely prompted by the softly glowing eyes of Carmelita. She lives on her father’s ranch nearby. Time passes and the Ramblin’ Kid becomes friends with a young Mexican grandee who is his rival for the heart and hand of Carmelita. The two men are in Carmelita’s parlor one sunny afternoon, and she chooses the Ramblin’ Kid as her prospective mate. Sadly, the young Mexican passes out Of the room, while the hero clasps Carmelita to his manly breast Just then thru the open window comes a bullet, speeded by the hand of the nefarious ranch foreman who has sneaked into the back yard, and the body of the irl falls limp in the arms of the Ramblin’ Kid. The would-be murderer hastens away, and in his hurry drops his hat into a well nearby. Carmelita’s father rushes into the room and accuses the Kid of shooting his darling daughter. He protests his innocence. Just then Carmelita’s faithful dog comes in the room barking. The Ramblin’ Kid leaves, his head bowed low. The doctor comes and finds that Carmelita received merely a scratch from the bullet, and is otherwise fine as silk. Then her father follows the dog, still barking, into the yard, is drawn to the well, looks in and sees th: hat, which he fishes out and recognizes as belonging to the ranch foreman, Hook Nose Joe. In the meantime the scurvy villain has infiamed the ranchhand against the Ramblin’ Kid and they all start on a mad ride to catch our hero with thoughts of a stringing party in their minds. When they get there, however, our hero is awaiting them, and he speeds a bullet into the body of the vengeful foreman and proves to ail thet said hombre was the guilty one. Everybody leaves the scene to tne hero and Uh yorl, and they rub noses happily The picture was directed by Alvin J Neitz and produced by Phil Goldstone State Right exchanges distribute it. Messrs. Zabel & Wilson recently ded cated their Capitol Theater, Olympi Wash. The occasion was a gala night » that city and much complimentary comment is being received on the beauty of the house. :