Variety (May 1921)

Friday, May 0, 1921 PICTURES 41 BOB HAMPTON OF PLACER. Kid.'.'.""" , l arJ °^!t. r !f w ^\ 1 B ~!".::::::::::::^o^^ g!r Wy.coip • • -Tom Gallery • iTAai Teacher Priiicllla Bonner £*£ iSt Charle« West KSScmMT Carrie Clark Ward jack Mortet .Bud Tost There are about 12,000 inches of unnecessary footage in this latest production by Marshall Ncilan for First National, now at the Strand. In addition, Marlon Fairfax's con- tinuity is tiresome evidence of how continuity writing has lagged in de- velopment while direction and act- ing have progressed. Badly ar- ranged to begin with. Mr. Neilan has padded it to play up Wesley vcirrv featured. This padding de- lays the action, and Barry's antics do not make up for the annoyance. And money! The way this director spends it in times like these makes the heart ache. Nor does he got results for his expenditures. Once «o prolific of ideas, going forward 111 the time. Marshall Neilan has become guardian of a reputation ac- auired in the good old working days, who is buoying up that reputation on the deep green waters of money. This picture won't do as a buoy. Whl t might save him would be ac- part of his backers. quently foreshadowed. When the villain enters a "ringer" in the county fair race it takes no agile imagination to predict that the hero is going to enter his world-beating thoroughbred and win the stakes. Hence a situation which, bad it been more expertly built up. would have held suspense, brings up \ lame second to the spectator's ad- vance expectation. In the short story field O. Henry was master of the delicate art of suggestion with- out revealment. while Clyde Fitch had the knack in play technique. Mioth could prepare for coming events with a skill that did not pre- vent story progress from holding surprise. Some how the scenario makers do not catch the trick as a rule. In the present case the only sur- prises come as bald coincidences. This is what happens when Johnny Hardwick's race track friend hap- pens upon him. The same thing occurs when Johnny's old pals of the "Follies'" and paddock discover him at the county fair. If these two incidents are not actual abuse of coincidence they are close to it. It's rather slipshod method that has to call lucky chance so much to- its aid in contriving situations. These considerations are not near- ly so academic as they appear. In "The Heme Stretch" they interfere with the enjoyment of watching a story that might have been better told. A spectator feels resentment, whether consciously or not, in be- ing thus crudely confronted with an arbitrary coincidence. The two race scenes are neatly handled as straightaway action epi THE LITTLE FOOL. tion on the Hand him $35,000 and no more. Tell him to make a picture with it. Then HO «j os am > there is a fairly interest - he would have to use his brains, not I j n g r0 mnncc between the racetrack money. Then possibly we would get j ncro an( y tne village postmistress. F something again This particular picture is based on Randall Parrish's novel. There's a fair story in it. Captain Nolan fights with Major Brant over the former's wife, and the major is stabbed from behind. Once out of prison the captain takes the name of Hampton, becomes a gambler and finds himself with two wards, a girl and a boy. Action now is concerned w,ith events leading up to and in- cluding Custer's last fight, which is shown. -_ ,, Even in this mass action Neilan is lost. Never once does he bring events really to grips with the heart, though the design of this Inept continuity here, for once in its course, approached what was need- ed. Money galore must have gone into this picturing of Indian tribes on the warpath and the cavalry in action, but even at the last Hampton and the kid are left dead but un- scalped. Every schoolboy knows what happened at the junction of the Big and Little Big Horn in Mon- tana, but Neilan—where Griffith wouldn't—overlooks the detail. Of the cast Majorie Daw is her sweet, girlish self, while James Kirkwood makes an upstanding, ef- fective gambling gunman. Charac- ter parts by Noah Beery and Frank Leigh were worked for their full effect. Wesley Barry and Carrie Clark Ward were supposed to sup- ply the comic relief, but as their work was flung into the action wholesale and Interrupted and de- layed it to just that extent, it is difficult to write appreciatively of them. A word should be said in praise of the realistic military work shown by the Tenth Cavalry and super- intended by Colonel Wyncoop. Dwight Crittenden, too. deserves praise for faithful representation of General Custer. Lccd. which leads to a rather spirited happy ending, but the picture is lacking in character drawing and human touches, and the recital be- comes merely labored manipulation of lay figures. Perhaps the titling, as uninspired an example of film captions as has been noted, have something to do with this result. Douglas MacLcan Is not happily cast as the hero. Usually a like- able juvenile, he does not give a sin- cere reading of this hero, who could have been made another "Checkers" as Henry Blossom drew that en- tertaining person. Walt Whitman, one time Miracle Man, is in the cast, but gets little out of a wooden part. The same might be said of the whole company—capable players hampered by a poor vehicle. Rush. THE HOME STRETCH. irgar Mr. Warren Walt Whitman Molly Margaret Livingston Mr, Duffy Wade Botrler Owen Duffy Mary Jane Irving Mr. Wilson Charles Mailes Mr». Wilson Molly MrConnHll Tommy Wilson Jack Singleton Hi Slmpkins Jo Bennett "Skeeter" George Holmes i BUCKING THE TIGER. At a time when picture magnates were trying to buck the legit by producing plays and then reproduc- ing them in pictures along came Lewis J. Sclznick, for whom a very industrious press department chron- icled an association with A. H. Woods as the producers of "Buck- ing the Tiger." This by Achmed Abdullah and May Tully. Securing Larry Marsden to stage it, the piece took to the road, and there little en- couragement swayed its further course. The management closed it after* several weeks. Conway Tearle and a cast were assembled to give it picture value. The result seems flat. Its situations are quite sterile as far as anything novel is concerned, and equally ster- ile of big, invigorating dramatic in- cidents. This is what it pretends to do, but does not pass beyond the boundary of pretentiousness. its value as an offering for a program release seems to be entirely dimlnu- , tlve The storv is of five men prac- Johnny Hardwick Douglas Mac-Lean "* J. IHLmnAmA in an Alnskan hOS- Margaret Warren Beatrice Burnham tically stranded *■»*»««»■»■ telry, impecunious, will-paraiyzea and all that. One in the group, ap- parently conscience stricken (always the hero In such cases) proposes a fund be contributed to one of this quintet. He is to live life to its fullest for one year. At the end the others are to become beneficiaries with the matriculation of an insur- ance policy. The one who is unfor- tunate enough to be nominated for this unique post is to eliminate him- self at the end of a year. The others are to collect. The hero's motive Is inspired by the heroine, who is a married woman with a disappointed husband and a mother who needs $1 000 to recover her health. As far as can be estimated from the sequences in this story there is not enough material to cover five reels, and consequently there are numerous episodes in the filament which drag too much for the good Of- Mu' pieture, Henry Kolkei's direction in the main is very conventional, but now and then it is intersected with several fine points, one especially in the handling of the mob. As for Mr. Tearlc's acting, it is in the accustomed manner, varying little from his efforts in preceding picture dramas. There Is no cause here to single out any one as achieving anything above ordinary merit in the east. The much pitied heroine seems to be much miscast, both as to looks and ability. On the other hand and by comparison the taller of the two principal women playing a secon- dary part acts rings around the glyccrine-teared blonde. ' The production is inexpensive. A mow landscape is used for the ex- teriors, while the interiors are of the conventional pattern, with a lobby of the hotel and the usuu; background of the saloon plus gam- bling palace. Photography fair. tile p. Metro's adaptation of Jack Lon- don's story. "The Little Lady of the Big House," makes a capital fea- ture. It has excellent feminine In- terest in a love story with a fresh angle and some of the finest scenic backgrounds and photography Imaginable. Also it la a simple story, simply and capably acted, so that there are no side interests to distract the spectator from the di- rect progress of the tale. Milton Sills, always a likeable sincere player, has a part made to order; Frances Wads worth is a lovely leading woman and Nigel Barrie fills out the essential tri- angle. The other figures are mere- ly used to fill in the picture and never intrude. This is as it should be and serves the purpose of econ- omizing attention and centering in- terest. Big casts only fog the story and scatter interest, although adapters of fiction seem to resist the idea. Dick inherits wealth and runs it up to a huge fortune. He and Florence have been ideally married ten years when Evan, an old time pal of Dick's, appears at their luxurious California home. He accompanies husband and wife and their guests In their picnics and horseback ex- cursions and gradually falls in love with Florence. Both friend and wife confess to the husband that they feel themselves drifting into a dangerous situation, but Dick laughs them off, declaring that they only imagine it. The wife ultimately is forced to a choice between the lover and husband. While she Is arguing with the lover, the husband appears on the scene and tells her she is at liberty to bolt. His view is that if she can't make up her mind after ten years of marriage, he will have none of her. There is a quick finale in which the wife begs forgiveness and asks to be restored to her hus- band. The out of door shots are extra- ordinarily lovely, partly because of the fine composition of the views and partly by a tricky method of employing misted photography. The Interiors of the fine mansion also are happily and artistically framed. In the first part there are a num- ber of scenes showing the women of the house party bathing in a woodland pool that edges into the Mack Sennett bathing girl fran- chipe, but the scenic setting is so lovely the union suited girl bath- ers strike one only as quite appro- priate for an idyll. A good "stunt" Is done here. One of the girls as a bit of frolic rides her horse to a high cliff and drives it over the edge for a long dive into the water, a spectacular per- formance. Altogether an interesting likeable picture. THE STRUGGLE. An unrestrained melodrama with a wallop every hundred feet is the broad scheme of this flve-reeler, of- fered by Canyon Pictures, under the sponsorship of William J. Selig. It is a model for a certain type of pic- ture—the kind that addresses itself to a very wide section of the fan public which asks only to be .thrilled with action episodes with- out inquiring too closely into the plausibility of the screen happen- ings. This kind of picture serves the same purpose 03 the dime novel of vestern cowboy setting, but "The Struggle" does it very neatly, and for exhibitors whose clientele have a taste for that grade of story it will serve most satisfactorily. The story opens with the hero (Franklyn Farnum), newly returned from the war, restless and given to rough-and-tumble exploits which disturb bis parents. He Ape's a gang of rowdies persecuting women and young workers in the mills. He un- dertakes a campaign to drivo them out, and this leads to a series of lively fist fights. The leader of the roughs and the hero come together at the factory gymnasium for a bare-knuckle bout in which the thug is knocked out. When it appears that he is dead the hero escapes through a window and takes a freight for the west. departs from her usual Tine of parts with a vivid portrayal of the scarlet woman, while Lillian Thurman Is pretty and sincere as the young girl who waits all those years for her lover to be rid of entanglements caused by his misstep. The screen fails to give the name of an elderly man who plays an old village doctor. It would be a pleasure to mention his name as a character actor of uncommon merit. Excellent photography contrib- utes in no small degree to the suc- cess of the feature. Jolo. INSIDE BUYING (Continued from page 3.) pretty well concentrated in strong hands. All the way up from 69, It Is said, there has been constant liquidation of small outside speculative hold- ings so that now company bank- ers and company officials have pretty complete command of the market position. Wide distribution of minor hold- ings is usually an element of weak- ness, and with this corrected it ought to be possible for the con- trolling pool to work its will upon quotations. The cutting down of the so-called "floating supply" City street warfare Is translated I available for borrowing would go a j long way toward discouraging bear into plains battles, the hero becom Ing an innocent member of an out- law gang to hide his identity. The bandits become involved in a plan to rob the heroine, owner of a ranch, and the hero frustrates their de- signs after innumerable fights. There is a capital touch of comedy sup- plied by a pickaninny and a trick donkey, part of the personnel of the heroine's ranch. There is no pretence to serious- ness in the picture. It's just a rough-and-ready melodrama,' with the "punches" scattered liberally throughout and no moral Intent. In- terest is sustained by fast action and there Is no demand upon imagi- nation. The screen does all the work and the spectator is not called upon to expend any energy in fol- lowing the tale. J tush. and Rush. Thomas H. Ince has not done as Well as usual with this story adapt- ed from Charles Belmont Davis' tale and current at the Rialto. It is billed as a Paramount product and stars Douglas MacLean. The trouble is that it tries half heartedly to earn serious consid- eration as a likelike record and at the same time tell a story that would fit a frank melodrama with- out pretense to naturalness. So it is half way between the "action story" with a powerful punch, but little plausibility, and one of those -'cross sections of iip.\' realist it- tales. J/ A carefully produced feature in either catagory deserves considera- tion, but the stories that try in vain to cover both specifications do not seem to get anywhere except occasionally when a picture has both "punch" and sincerity. Bui that happens only o#ice In a while and results in the exceptional film. In printed story form the author may have made the narrative pro- gress naturally and concealed the mechanics of his fiction, but In the screen version the machinery of a contriving scenario writer is ob- truRive. Motives are vague and conduct frequently out of character. The first horse race has Its thrill. hut the incident of the rescue of the child who wanders upon the course in the path of the galloping horses misses its 'kick*' because the auditor cannot but realize that it Is invented for purely fictional purposes. 'The progress o£ the story is frc- OLIVER TWIST, JR. Designers of picture scenarios must be in a low state of imagina- tion when they resort to a five-reel paraphrase of a standard book. In this William Fox story there is not a single change of material, not one detail of decoration added to the Dickens story of Oliver Twist. It is Just a recital of the Knglish work, translated to the American locale and to modern times. Fagan is absent, but Bill Sikes Is among those present under the namo of Jim Cleek. So is Nancy and the Artful Dodger, nameless and modern, but the Artful Dodger as to occupation minus any distin- guishing characteristics. Harold Goodwin plays Oliver, but it is a queer and unconvincing Oliver who stands half a head higher than the new conception of Bill Sikes. A director should have known that the basic appeal of the Oliver Twist story is the childish helpless- ness of the boy. Without that ele- ment there is no sympathy. That was the reason of the tremendous appeal of the story as done some years ago .with Marie Doro as the Dickens waif. Even in that case the sordidness of the tale of London underworld life was a severe handi- cap. What, then, Is the excuse for a Dicture of the Fox sort, whero the NOBODVS KID. Mae Marsh returns in this Rob- ertson-Cole special, retitled and adapted from a novel called "Mary Cary," by Katherine Langley Bo- shon. Used jointly on a double feature day at the Circle with Mil- ton Sills in "The Little Fool," both names proved a big draw. In its denouement the Marsh vehicle rubs elbows with "Daddy Long Legs." Playing the role of an orphan and discovering that she Is "somebody's kid" and not "nobody's" is practi- cally the sense of the entertainment. The piece opens In an orphanage and the sequences couple the events in her life until she graduates from tl>e tyrannical Instructor to tho lov- ing arms of a relative. The story itself is trashy and the script seems to have been manipu- lated by the continuity writers to offer action that is exaggerated with the object of covering the heroine with an abundance of bathos. It becomes a trifle saccharine. The titles, from the original text, have a wealth of humor which was not lost upon the audience. Numer- ous scenes also offered a humorous touch. The cast Includes, in addition to the star, John Steppllng, Anne Shaefer, Kathleen Kirkham and Maxine Hicks. While this is in no sense a first-run picture, It is ade- quate for program use. Step. IN THE HEAItT OF A FOOL. Atmospheric to an exceptional degree Is the picturlzation of "In the Heart of a Fool," adapted from Will- lam Allen White's novel by Lillian Lucey. It is an Allan Dwan pro- duction for Mayflower, released via First National and featuring James Kirkwood and Anna Q. Nllsson. The sub-titles are ponderously allegorical and their relativity to the unfoldment of the story rather ob- scure, designed to show that life Is a loom and we are Its myriad threads. They also refer to "the cir- cumstance of chance and change." Preceding each series of scenes of actuality are shown flashes of the allegorical "weaver." But, stripped of all this twaddle, there Is a virile life story that Is Interesting, and tho allegory serves only convincing details are those of only to retard the cumulative pro wretchedness and squalor? it is ] jjr-ossion of a grim fate of life in a Dickens' "Oliver Twist" with all the beauty and sympathy left out and only the uncomfortable and harrowing portions emphasized. What's the use of spending money, time and energy for such a purpose. For the design seems to be to strip a great novel of all its beauty and burden it with all its original ugli- ness with a gratuitous addition of more of the same. In addition to which the whole thing is done crudely. The crass de- vice of the locket by which Olivers identity is traced keeps cropping up at the most confusing moments. One would have to remember the book with extraordinary vividness to piece the tale together with any completeness from the film. In its taking or in its cutting the ^whole thing has been made unbelievably chaotic. The thing was not fc worth 'doing fnthe first'place, and t * mp.ke it complete has been done badly. Kiuh. small town populated with'flesh'-andY blood beings, who sin and otherwise conduct themselves humanly. There Is nothing especially In the story to require its narration In detail. Its personages live and suffer through the sins of sex, which are -frankly set down through the medium of good dramatic action but minus any vulgarity and making little or no bid for sensationalism. To be sure, there is a mine explosion and fire, In which the hero Is shown doing brave deeds. This Is dragged In by the heels and has no direct bearing upon the tale. The story would be Just as good without it. The di- rector would have shone as bril- liantly through the medium of a splendidly staffed mob scene. James Kirkwood gives a manly- performance of a youth who falls for a scarlet woman through pro- pinquity and suffers years of misery before he succeeds in winning the girl he really loves. Miss NiiJ>.*>un operations in Famous Players and an advance might be looked for, depending, of course, on the plans of the long pool. The performance of the ticker since Friday of last week would Indicate that for the present the campaign of accumula- tion has been completed. Ordinarily this would be followed by minor setbacks while the market digests the new level of prices. After this period of waiting a new advance would be in order. This view takes it for granted that the move is part of a specific policy rather than a mere specula- tive turn and is, based on some influence within the company which promises future betterment. If It (is a drive for quick profit, the ticker record would indicate only that major holders have noted the ease with which pools in other spe- cialties have been able to advance their issues, such as the motor, rub- ber and auto accessories, and have been encouraged to imitate the maneuver. Support behind Famous Players has been plentiful. The stock opened Monday morning at 79 and was promptly bid up to better than 81 before noon. Wednesday the stock got as low as 78 % for a mo- ment in the early trading, but ral* lied immediately. Bee-sawing* of this sort Is typical of an upturn such as that of the last two weeks. Buyers on the climb frequently keep a "stop order" moving up two or three points behind tho advancing quotations, so that "safety first" sales come In promptly on minor recessions. The rallying power of Famous Players lately makes It plain that the pool is amply able to absorb selling of this kind. The talk of an extra dividend In Orpheum was renewed this week. The stock went to 30 late last week and Mort Singer was quoted as saying an Increase in the disburse- ments on the common "might be expected" from the earnings of the four new theatres in tho west. This Is foreshadowed as a rate of $3 a year on the common instead of the former rate of $2 for each share of $1 par, put out at $25. There was some talk of an extra payment at the annual meeting of the stockholders in January, but the view prevailed that action might better be deferred until the country's financial situation was improved. The revival of divi- dend talk probably had something to do with the jump in Orpheum from 24% to 30. Selling set in at that level when the news came out. This Is the normal swing. Specu- lators buy in to discount an ad- vantageous development in the fu- ture. The buying generates an ad- vance up to the point where the favorable development becomes public..property.^ Karly buyers then P.tfuro that'the advantage has been discounted and take their profit, selling which brings about an auto- matic recession. Apparently this circle was completed Wednesday when Orpheum was quoted at 27 Vi, almost exactly midway between the high of 30 and the low of 21 \. Locw ran true to form within the narrowest range, high at 19% and low at 18U. Plainly the block heU by the underwriters is still a brake. Famous Players preferred is af- fected by the same condition. Dur- ing the period since Christmas Fa- mous Players common has moved up from under 45 to better than 82, while the preferred has gone only 18 points, from 72 to 90, a gain of 37 for the common and 18 for the preferred, This narrows th> (Continued on Page 42)