Wid's Filmdom (1921)

Sunday, September 4, 1921 Ye DAILY f Neilan Presents an Unusual Novelty “Bits, .Or -LIBE Neilan Prod.—Asso. First National Pict. GEO Mec ican. swe, Marshall Neilan AUTHOR...... Short stories by several well known authors adapted for the screen by Marshall Neilan Pere tie eeNt AN © fone ards Gee Not credited AS A WHOLE...... Very interesting novelty which, while episodic, proves very fine screen material. Will please STORIES. .:... All of a different nature, but tied together by a very clever letter signed by the director DIRECTION...... Just like all of Neilan’s work— excellent, with many fine touches BHOTOGRAPHY #.ci2. Very fine, especially the Chinese sequence APD Ath ee 6 Lon Chaney probably gives best performance, but Frederick Burton is fine and natural, while Rockliffe Fellowes is also good eC EIN GIS... moe en te Very good as a rule POMEL IOI Or. ae eee ss own so wee Look natural UU SRD 2 pet esas bot corn rer Ute eae Correct PEAS EL cota. |. arene, Few Neilan shines in this CHARACTER OF STORIES:....... Nothing offensive and one of best things he has ever done Poo LAs PRODUCTION: ......... 6,339 feet Marshall Neilan has given a novelty to the screen in “Bits of Life,” which might well prove the forerunner of more entertainment of this description. He has taken four short stories and by cleverly tying them together has given an excellent piece of screen entertainment. The stories are presented as part of a letter which Neilan has signed and which explains the difficulty of finding material for pictures. All of the stories are different. They have no relation whatsoeyer to each other and three of them have powerful punches. Three of them appeared in various publications, and the last is an original story which has a true O. Henry surprise finish. In the first Rockliffe Fellowes has the star bit. He is a tough New York boy who develops into one of the great crooks of the world and who, after doing a real kindness to a man in want, is arrested by the detective who has always trailed him waiting for a slip to be made. Wesley Barry appears in the early incidents when he is sold into East Side slavery and 1s of course his usual clever self. But his freckles are missThere is a lot of natural stuff in this, but it is probably the weakest of the four incidents. Frederick Burton shines in the next, which tells the story of a fine, clean and simple minded barber who is deaf. In his dreams of what life is he has pictured everything clean and beautiful. ing. But when he finally secures a contrivance by which he can hear all of the grossness of life becomes evident. He is shocked at hearing for the first time an unclean story. He finds that the sweet little girl he has liked so much is arrested for trying to kill her brother. His wife, whom he has trusted implicitly and whom he loves with true fidelity, he finds is faithless and no good, who is giving all the money he is trying to save to a worthless brother and meeting “swells” outside her home. Finally, in desperation, he takes the contrivance to the little yard back of his shop and smashes it to pieces. Burton‘s performance is splendid. The next, a Chinese story by Hugh Wiley, is the finest and most powerful of the lot. The settings are gorgeous and Lon Chaney gives one of his own special kind of bits which has made him.so prominent in character work. Here, as the Chink who, anxious to marry a pretty Chinese girl, deceives her and others, and breaks into a rage when he finds his first child is a daughter, he cruelly beats his little wife and then goes into his opium den. One of her friends from the Mission brings a cross bearing the Saviour and pleads with her to pray. She is so weak she cannot rise and the cross is nailed low on the wall. The nail meets something soft on the other side of the woodwork, and when they investigate they find the nail has pierced Chaney’s head. This is a powerful bit. The last is an imaginative idea which in reality is a dream which John Bowers has while being manicured. He goes through all sorts of wild events saving a princess who is in distress, and wakes up to find Noah Beery, his barber, is the wicked minister and the pretty manicure girl is the princess. It is a clever twist and will surprise your people. Bank on Director’s Name-This Should Be Enough Box Office Analysis for the Exhibitor You can safely play this and by clever advance work do good business with it. You can talk about it as one of the real novelties of the coming season and can make promises with safety. You might take a chance and ask your crowd whether they want more of this sort of entertainment, and as contests usually work out to the profit of the house you can accomplish a double result. This is the first time anything like it has been attempted. Your crowd knows Neilan, but if there is any doubt about it tell them this novelty is from the same man who produced Bank But you can also mention the fine “Dinty,’ and also mention some of his other successes. on Neilan and play him up. work of Lon Chaney and Frederick Burton. Chaney should be well known and you can talk of his work-in recent suc cesses.