Wid's Filmdom (1919)

2 oh / DAILY Sunday, October 19, 1919. Ser RT Wallace Reid Scores a Knockout in Finely Handled Version of Stage Play | Wallace Reid in “THE LOTTERY MAN” Paramount-Artcraft DIRECTOR ....... . <a 6 es oe James Cruze AUTHOR. <2. ....... <2 seen Rida Johnson Young SCENARIO’ BY... . 7c eee» os tae Elmer Harris CAMERAMAN. ...%. s,m a ce ek Frank Urson ms A WHOLE... ...cee One of the best, if not the best, all around comedies that has been issued in many moons. BD OI Naame as 5: Taken from a successful stage play but it comes through like fresh stuff. DIRECTION... \.5ee If James Cruze had never made another picture this would stamp him as an excellent director. PHOTOGRAPHY 23. . Very fine all the way LIGHTINGS eee Give sets and players a natural appearance. CAMERA WORK........ Every once in a while the scenes are varied by a shot from an unexpected angle. ESTAR 2) ie: Put this at the top of the list of his productions and you won’t go wrong. SUPPORTS... a Harrison Ford makes excellent running mate for Reid; Wanda Hawley is the kind of a girl any man would like to make love to; others in the cast up to the mark. HXLERIO RSP Always suit the action; some of them decidedly pretty. INTERIORS. .... eis ren. c. s 2 eee First rate DETAIL 75-% Titles are good for a quantity of laughs, lots of incidental business that shows ingenuity on the part of the director and the continuity writer. CHARACTER OF/STORY.......... Clean-and bright LENGTH:OF PRODUCTION. ©... cin5s4,404 feet You’ve heard a lot of talk abut “better” pictures for the coming season. Perhaps there is something in the optimistic promises that every worth while producer in the game subscribes to. Meanwhile we'll wait -and see and (get this straight and mark it down on your little booking calendar) “The Lottery Man” runs all the way up the good, better, best scale of the productions starring our old friend Wallace Reid, and stands at the top with a victory flag waving over the 100 per cent. mark. It’s a long while since a greater amount of clean, invigorating, wholesome fun has been injected into a | photoplay. They start off with a comedy wallop in the . scenes of college life where Wallace and his chum Harrison Ford solve the problem of living joyously even in the dispiriting atmosphere of a class room; they follow through with a consistent story of newspaper ~dom and the carrying out of an ingenious idea of an impecunious reporter in search of a “whale” of a feature article, and they close with a laugh, not for-. getting the heart throb of youthful romance fulfilled. Quite properly, the comedy element was considered first and the audience is put in a good humor from the moment Reid and Harrison Ford are met in the college classroom. Then a boy and girl romance is introduced between Wallace and Wanda Hawley, ‘who treasures for years to come a candy bag purchased by her hero at the Campus confectionary shop. This romance, used as the picture advances to heighten the suspense of the story, is handled with extreme delicacy. Sentiment is there, but it is never overdone. No unnecessary footage is utilized in getting into the swing of the action after the boys have left college, Ford to become proprietor of a newspaper which he has inherited, Reid to become a special writer on the sheet. The stock market causes Reid’s downfall, and to make good the money he has borrowed from his tolerant boss, he hits upon the great scheme of offering himself as a husband in a lottery to be conducted by the newspaper. As a circulation builder nothing ever touched “The Lottery Man” contest, but the numerous complications become yet more involved when Reid falls genuinely in love with Wanda and she spurns him as a money-grabber. The cast includes: Fannie Midgley, Sylvia Ashton, Carolyn Rankin, Winifred Greenwood and others. Worth All of the Publicity You Can Give It The Box Office Analysis for the Exhibitor No matter what sort of a show shop you are running, this is the sort of a picture that you ought to have. It is a high-class comedy, but you need not be afraid that it will go over the heads of your folks even if you figure that they like broad humor. Either by intent or accident the director has included some low comedy stuff in scenes presenting Winifred Greenwood, who, as you may recall, is extraordinarily thin. From an artistic standpoint they might have been toned down, but for a picture they may be considered advantageous, , “The Lottery Man” idea and title lends itself to various forms of special exploitation. At no great ex-_ pense you might have coupons printed for distribution among your women patrons, the printing on the coupons indicating that each one means a chance on a husband. These same coupons might be sent through the mail to a selected list of your patrons.