Wid's weekly (1923)

IT SATURDAY ojjp. -^•-WEEKLY IX NOVEMBER 24, 1923 Interesting Yes But Hardly Dramatic or Entertaining Reno Rupert Hughes-Goldwin Length 7 Reels DIRECTOR . Rupert Hughes AUTHOR . Rupert Hughes CAMERAMAN . John Mescall GET ’EM IN . This has interesting exploitation possibilities, and should pull good business. PLEASE ’EM . Except for information concerning divorce law tangles, this is just a movie. It falls considerably short of being pleasing special. WHOOZINIT . Carmel Myers, Helene Chadwick, Lew Cody, George Walsh, Dale Fuller, Hedda Hopper, and a good many players in small parts. SPECIAL APPEAL . Concentrate everything on this being exposition of this country’s contra¬ dictory divorce laws. STORY VALUES . No solution is presented except killing muchly married husband in movie style. TREATMENT . Action is very episodic and simply presents possible tangles without registering much drama. CHARACTERIZATIONS . Principals and entire cast give satisfying performances, but character of story blocks them from any emotional register that is effective. ARTISTIC VALUES . Generally sets and locations are quite satisfactory. There were some beau¬ tiful shots. Director Author Hughes gives us in this a visuali¬ zation of the troubles a muchly married man can en¬ counter if he travels about in this country and cares to worry over the state laws. This visualization may be of some value in showing just how ridiculous this situation is. As entertainment the offering is only fair, because we have no dramatic highspots, and the finish, where the muchly married man is killed off, is very much crude movie. This starts off splendidly, except that we get two proposals on an Atlantic City beach in the same family, on one afternoon, and that seems rather speedy after the Reno divorce-marriage opening. The balance of the film is very episodic, with the characters touring the country, in order that the author may make his points regarding the contradictory divorce laws exist¬ ing in various states. Mr. Hughes manages to show us that Lew Cody had no wife in one state, a coupla wives in another state, and three when he got to South Carolina. We also had it explained that some southern states per¬ mitted girls to marry too young, and that the South Carolina no divorce law made it pretty tough on the poor sold who married a beast. I am inclined to believe that most folks who see this will be disappointed in the offering from an enter¬ tainment viewpoint, because the last half of it fails to build to any good dramatic situations, and at the finish the principals are rather arbitrarily gathered together in Yellowstone Park, for a movie fight, in which Lew Cody is killed. The only purpose, appar¬ ently, in bringing them all to Yellowstone Park for a finish ivas that the author wanted to make his point that human emotions are very much like the Yellow¬ stone geysers, they can’t be pent up. The finish of having Lew throAA'n into a geyser and shot out again into the air \irill hardly get a thrill, because even the children know that such things are faked. It was too bad that no one paid any attention to Leva’s body at the end. They sort of left him flat and went to the clutch. It would have been a bit better to have played this finish more naturally. Undoubtedly this title and the exploitation pos¬ sibilities of the divorce question provide material that will bring business, if intelligently used. There is a splendid cast, with plenty of names to talk about, and it should not be a hard trick to get ’em in. I Avould recommend particularly that you sell this carefully as a visualization of the tangles caused by contradictory laws, rather than as a big drama. In other words, you must be careful not to lead them to expect a solution, because there is none of course, except a uniform law for all states. Even that does not rectify the problem of what happens to the children when they begin to have too many papas and mamas. I believe you can figure this to get by safely, but it is a special in theme only, and you must be careful as to exactly hoAv you present it. Some very good play¬ ers were used for bits only, the rather extensive cast including the following: Helene Chadwick, LeAV Cody, George Walsh, Carmel Myers, Hedda Hopper, Dale Fuller, Kathleen Key, Rush Hughes, Marjorie Bonner, William Orlamond, Howard Truesdale, Robert Devilbiss, Virginia Loomis, Richard Wayne, Lucien Little¬ field, Hughie Mack, Boyce Combe, Victor Potel, Percy Hemus, Maxine Elliott Hicks, Evelyn Sherman, Jack Curtis, Patterson Dial and Gertrude Short.