Judge — December 25, 1920 — page 12: what you’re looking at

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

Sh Filmorgies By Myron M. Stearns (“LeNso”) N the pleasant little village of Rome, Italy, way on the other side of the League of Nations, near the Forum and the Vatican and the Mediterranean and the Pantheon, sixty or seventy club members in beautiful dress-suits sat down to their customary orgy. Beautiful dancing girls in beau- tiful loose garments with beautiful hair and beautiful bare feet slipped in and out among the smooth-shirted diners, with bea tiful bowls of beautiful wines, and so on. Then an except‘on- ally beautiful dancer sprang lightly onto the table, beautifully clad in a beautifully transparent s car, which unwound as she turned around and around, until: , go see for yourself in “The Truth About Husbands!” In the pleasant little village of Lunnon, England, in the very center of the League of Nations, near Westminster and the House of Lords and the House of Commons and Limehouse, and other houses too numerous to mention, many beautiful men and women of the beautiful social world gathered at the home of their beautiful but evil hostess for their customary orgy. Then an exceptionally beautiful dancer was carried in beautifully wrapped in a beautiful white silken scarf, which unwound as she danced, turning around and around, until—well, watch “Idols of Clay.” In the pleasant little village of New York. far from the silly and selfish League of Nations, near—but why go on forever? There are too many movies. And life is too short. The fact is, as Montague Glass’ 'speople put it: Too much is enough. One movie orgy would be very interesting, and original as well. But when they come in clusters, like miracles, and reformations, and murders, and garden parties—well, they're stimulating, perhaps, but fatiguing. First it was just dancing. motion picture could be offered to the G. A. Public without adance. It gave thedirector a chance to get his “big’’ effect—lots of couples, dancing. This common or general dance is still with us; like the cabbage rose, it is too popular to be cast aside; no “fea ture” film made in America, lacking the more up-to-date substitutes, is complete without it. School dances, society dances. country dances, or “Western” dance-hall dances—we must have ‘em Gane Then some unusually fertile brain pre sented filmdom with the garden party, as a new and startling variant of the dance. Followed the garden party epidemic. Then the féte. And oi, yoi, the masked ball! What a demand for masked balls! Dozens of ‘em — hundreds — thousands — oodles! KISMET PASSION* HELIOTROPE For years no yarn. well done. ing role. Film Folks Are Watching: The Mystic East of Moviedom. The fall of the Bastile. Fine version of a disagreeable IDOLS OF CLAY Probably some one’s idea of o great motion picture WAY DOWN EAST ‘The most for the money. THE_TESTING-BLOCK California in ‘49. A BOLD BAD PIRATE Artistic two reeler. MIDSUMMER MADNESS His Friend and his Wife, well Why OVER THE HILL* ‘Homely but effective story of in. THE BRANDING IRON Worse'n you'd expect. THE TRUTH ABOUT HUSBANDS Proving ‘em @ pretty Lad Jot. MADAME PEACOCK A great actress in an uncervinc- “Exceptionally good. Studios searching frantically for more maskcostumes! Mephis. topheles suits rented over and over again until absolutely worn out while still young! Miles and miles of streamer confetti! And then—the logical next step—the orgy. In “The Restless § we sce the successive presentation—dance, féte, costumes, orgy. The single beautiful dancer in her beautiful transparent attire is the last word in movie originality. When “On with the Dance” appeared, you could see the jaded audiences lift re juvenated heads to watch Miss Mac Murray—er—scintillate asa solo dancer. For a still more striking sample of “the ul- timate touch,” see the cabaret dance in “Heliotrope.”” Perfect! Not a scarf too many—not a step too far! Even the censors puzzled and discouraged—unable to decide where to cut! Of course behind all these masked balls and fétes and orgies is—life!_ The picture producers themselves admit they want to give us Truth—and everybody knows how empty any real- life evening is without its masked ball or its orgy. Why, for most of us a week without streamers or confetti or a dancer un- wound on the table would be as unbearable as to have to open our own front door without even a butler to buttle around and announce the guests, or a valet to put us to bed! However, there’s a difficulty with so many of these orgies and butlers and masked balls and valets and all the rest. They make it most goshawful hard for the producer or the picture that offers no box-office attraction of the custom- ary sort. When a homely little story of real folk in a country town, or a small city comes along, Mr. Exhibitor turns up his nose. Unless there’s a Charles Ray in it, or a D.W. Griffith behind it, or some other big inducement, Mr. Exhibitor shakes his head. ‘othing big about it. Nothing to draw ‘em in. Nothing to mak ‘em feel they've got their mone worth if they do come. Why, the picture last week had an orgy that made you blush all over! Actual real lif too—Paris! And the week before that the hero had two valets, and lived in a house so big it took two minutes and a half—stop- watch—to w cross even the living-room! yy, the dining-room set must ’a’ cost $12,000 good movie money—what? And Mr. Exhibitor is right. For while there are some millions of us who welcome the still rare pictures that actually portray something of life as it appears to us, there are still more millions who want the shirt-fronts and butlers and dukes and_ orgies that they're used to, and who will be apt to feel cheated if they don’t get ‘em. ages ina single