Visual Education (Jan 1923-Dec 1924)

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February, 19 2 3 63 cfhe Films in Review SHADOWS HERE is a strong and worth-while play modeled on a perversion of the Enoch Arden theme — a play strangely weak and in places strangely strong. Moments of ineffectualness, when people behave in utterly silly, improbable manner, are alternated with tensely dramatic situations. The plot is carefully developed, but the climax is so prolonged as to be weakened. What really makes the play, however, is the performance of Lon Chaney as the humble Chinese laundryman. Although the importance of this character in the action is slight, he dominates the picture; he personifies, in a way, a pervading influence. Mr. Chaney's various characterizations have always been striking— sometimes a little too grotesque, but always distinctive. In SHADOWS he again proves that he may be called a great actor. His mastery of bizarre makeup enables him to be unbelievably Oriental in appearance. He seems, moreover, to iinderstand the fatalistic Oriental outlook upon life. Maintaining the inscrutable ga'ze'of the East, he contrives to make you understand the feeling behind every slight gesture and every absence of expression. He demonstrates, as the play intends, that the kindly, patient old heathen "Ching-Ching-Chinaman" is a better Christian than many who profess their faith volubly in meeting. Although he is converted on his death-bed, one likes to think that the shades of his pagan ancestors will flutter around him as he drifts away over the dark sea on his last, long journey. Harrison Ford, as the earnest and sinned-against young minister, does excellent work. He is gradually raising himself from the class of dapper youngleading man to an enviable position as ?.n actor. Distributed by Al Lichtman Corporation. THE FLIRT THE FLIRT is a more comprehensive title in this case than one would expect. In portraying the devastation which can be wrought by a selfish and coolly calculating pretty daughter, Booth Tarkington has furnished a very substantial and effective characterization of a typical American family. The harassed, indulgent father, who would be a better parent were he not so blind to his children's shortcomings; the plain, quiet sister, who loves the man with whom the "flirt" merely toys; the married daughter, absorbed in her baby and in her crude husband ; the submerged mother; the irrepressible small boy — all are skillfully filmed in an appealing and well constructed domestic drama. While the film is made up of the plain, homely details of everyday life, the situation in which the father becomes involved through his daughter's criminal selfishness is sufficiently tense and dramatic to furnish the picture with a real thrill. Eileen Percy makes the offending Cora so real and vivid that one feels an irresistible desire to shake her until tier pearly teeth rattle and her marcel comes out. It is further irritating to find that loving tears and quick forgiveness flow over this erring one before there are any indications of sincere repentance. But, after all, that is the way in life — the naughty flourish like the proverbial green-bay tree, particularly if blessed with yellow curls and fetching ways, while the good and the unobtrusive — as portrayed by the delightful Helen Jerome Eddy— sit quietly in the corner, unnoticed and unpraised. A word for the small boy! He was so genuinely and actively a real boy, so excessively annoyed by the adult vagaries of the various members of his family, so mischievous and yet so SHADOWS Lon Chaney, brings all his art to the portrayal of the self-effacing, pathetic, appealing Yen Sin, the Chinese laundryman... He is the center of the play's dramatic action, as Buddy Messenger, in the role of Mister Bad Boy, is the center of its comedy scenes.