Judge — February 28, 1920 — page 24: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

by Wrnwas Parson ATURE is getting it in the neck, we hear. Sylvan grandeur, the forestry feature writers tell us, is being ground to a pulp in order that pen- pushers (inchiding these very champions of conserva- tion) may publish When these depredations are going on, it is reassur- ing to know that in the Wild North beyond the bourne of Times Square, up in Forty-cighth Street latitudes, primeval woods are flourishing in two theaters. East of Broadway is “The Storm,” deep in the Canadian North West: west of it, at the Fulton, is “Big Game,” snowbound “in a trapper’s cabin somewhere north of Quebec.” .\ cunning Indian guide, such as the Mani- teekwea of “he Storm,” could trace the trail from Mr. Belasco’s famous and lucrative Tiger-Rose-woods. The theatergoer who visits both cabins on the banks of Broadway's tributaries can learn much about Canuck dialect, blizzard housekeeping, and jealousy as an in- door sport for the long winter even- ings, and how a cad may look at a queen. In the Canadian wilds the number of male persons is optional, but one woman is a quorum for a quarrel “The Storm,” which blew in last summer and is still very much with us, respects the movie standards of manhood Burr Winto broad-chested, every inch a professional denizen of God's Country, has a partner, David Steart, from the sordid city. Give you fourteen guesses as to which proves the villain. Well, the two chaps are compelled by weather con- ditions to take ina timid Canuckess named Nanette, whose pa chooses their door-step as a place to expire on. Winton shuns by H women, and Stewart is crazy about ‘em. I | By Lawton toward Winton, just as the trick forest fire‘ Scanpats or breaks loose—as virulent as the stage elec- tricians can make it. Trunks are slammed Miooue 24 The Magnetic North about with a violence that would do credit to the best baggage smashers. A _par- ticularly large tree pins down the miscreant in his perfidy, and Nanette turns with re- lief to her Nature’s nobleman. This rather mechanical play, with its patented cat- aclysm, is made human by the fine acting of Helen Ma Kellar as the girl, and Edwin Arnold and Robert Rendel as hero and hound “Big Game” offers an effective rebuttal. Larry Smith, pale tenderfoot who, with his Canadian-born wife, puts up at White's cabin for the duration of a bli shrinks at the thought of shooting a Lothario of the wilds for being too attentive to the missus; but in the end, after being acutely urged, he does shoot a whe!e revolver-full, directly into the terrorizer’s tummy. It shocks us, though, that a frail shopkeeper from States should be a hero and a brawny woods- man a villain. This play, too, is well acted and admir- ably staged. It has more atmosphere and character-humor than “The Storm.” — Charles Halton plays a Canuck lout deliciously. But the swagger réle is John St. John, the truculent Don Juan, and this George Gaul gives us with gorgeous gusto. ‘The last time we saw Gaul he was Job, the Scriptural celebrity, a a thorough Job he made of and previous to that he Genesis, the darkey in Tarking- ton’s “Seventeen.” As St. John he has moved up in the Bible, but his morals have sadly retrograded. The way John watches and preys on shut-in sweetness is something awful. \ . * . . Mackaut UO Rivalry in the relentless North, where Hue stags (human or quadruped) lock horns for red a showdown, is to the death. While this But Winton weakens. It’s a harrowing GA Sim. iew was being writ in water the two hibernation, that, waiting for the thaw; _ husky dramas—cabined, cribbed, confined but when it does arrive Nanette melts yx Pexsixcros, or tu, —sSettled their claims to Miss Public in a 1919” Now grim struggle. Of the details none but the ANN-IMATING THE box office man can tell; but when the West scufflewas over“ Big Game” had vamoosed. comicbooks.com eo