Wid's Filmdom (1920)

o a/), 12 é DAILY Sunday, March 21, 1920 Nothing Definite in Theme or Drama About This Alice Brady in “SINNERS” Realart DIRECTOR +, osc tincueees see cee ee Kenneth Webb AUTHOR 3. .anghchee uh oes Cee oe eee Owen Davis SCENARIO BY Viste. ois. ee ee Eve Unsell CAMERAMAN #250 igen as ss oaeoere George Folsey AS AWHOLE...... Very artificial plot that promises big things but fails to introduce much melo. dramatic power. : STORYVs603 3 There was a chance to make a stirring climax for this but they missed it. DIRECTION. 2554. Just ordinary; fails to build up various sequences with force. PHOTOGRAPHY LIGHTINGS CAMERA WORK... 2.255205 5 oe ee terre Good STARS oc 6 os sete Seems a bit too repressed here SUBPORTA Includes a lot of big names but they don’t get much to do. : EXTERIORS..42..% Some very pretty and unusual shots of Nantucket. INTERIORS) w.0..0. ois see 5 one oe ee Very good DEPALUY ae: Story has several “convenient” twists and star fails to dress to her role at times. CHARACTER OP STORY.) 2s Girl proves to home town that her contact with city sinners hasn’t made a sinner of her. LENGTH OF PRODUCTION... 4,833 feet Once more we have a case of excellent picture possibilities not being fully realized by those concerned in the production of the work. Owen Davis’ melodrama “Sinners,” while, as written may not have offered wonderful chances on the surface, certainly contained plenty of material beneath that could have been brought out by skilful artists and made into a very strong picture. But as “Sinners” stands now it is a very commonplace production, presenting a story that is ever contradicting itself and which never rises Good to even ordinary melodramatic heights. Alice Brady appears as Mary, a country girl, who goes to the city to make her living and eventually finds herself forced to accept it from a girl from her home town who has gone wrong, and her friends. Returning because of her mother’s illness she is denounced by Worth, a straight-laced local character. She retorts that his friends in the city offered her no assistance while the group of “sinners” did. Then the sinners descend on Mary’s home en masse because Bob Merrick, not a sinner after all, wanted to see her again. They go into the usual final love scene after a lot of business has been introduced in which the sinners and country puritans are brought together. But these scenes prove little whereas they might have been made to mean a lot and take the form of powerful drama. What with the exceedingly beautiful exteriors provided in Nantucket, one at least expects to see the sinners absorb some of the clean air and freshness of the place—expects to see them reform the least bit —but such is not the case. The story as told here is very convenient in spots, the most noticeable one being when Worth comes to the city to tell Mary of her mother’s illness when a Miss Brady’s clothes don’t help her to make the part convincing. telegram would have done just as well. The star’s performance seems a bit too repressed but the role of Mary doesn’t give her very many opportunities to register definite expression one way Her support includes a lot of good The story would have been improved a lot had James L. Crane’s or the other. players but they have few opportunities. hero role been built up. Others who appear are Wiliam P. Carleton, Frank Losee, Craufurd Kent, Robert Schable, Agnes Everett, Augusta Anderson, Lorraine Frost and Nora Reed. Title Will Surely Draw But Many Will Be Dissatisfied Box Office Analysis for the Exhibitor There is no doubt but that “Sinners,” on its title alone, will attract a certain class of patrons in large numbers. They will come expecting to see something a little spicey and the chances are they will be satisfied, inasmuch as there is quite a long sequence of scenes enacted in the home of two of the female sinners. On the other hand the production is bound to disappoint some to a great extent because they have failed to make anything definite out of the material offered. The story proves nothing except that immoral people can be charitable at times and that the severest critics of morals are often sinners themselves but it doesn’t present this argument at all dramatically and that’s the big fault.