Judge — January 15, 1921 — page 23: what you’re looking at

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

Dravn by Heawas Povsnn OW that the great spectacle-picture misnamed ** Pas- sion” has been openly admitted to be of German and has played in New York to S birth Room Onl paragraphs some weeks ago—namely United States of American Films This “Passion” picture, now: for a regular stand-up-and- roar, knock -down-and-drag-out, eat-“em-alive, spectacle-drama, we certainly have to hand it’ to those devilish, double-deal which we ing citizens of that great with (officially) at war. country But it would not be fair to stop with that single grouty ssing this great film-drama by with admission. Instead of 4 the usual wonderful-picture-but-he-ought-not-to-have-kissed her-foot-in-the-third-act type of comment selves, and to Ame competition for world supremacy in motion pictures, to take — cal stock and see where we stand. Metro's excellent Comparing “ Passion” with the work of our greatest. Ameri In “The can director, D. W. Griffith, whose bi stantly to mind In this first great German film, find three things lacking in our Ame spirit of the play,” a certain abstract per- spective, and a fearless, graphic realism The spirit of the play” is a clumsy, cub: footed term, but must serve. As with the dramas of ancient Greece, we are swept out of ourselves, to watch the human pyg: mies perform like marionettes, to laugh at the catharsis of comedy, to tragedy The greater perspective comes close to being part and parcel of the same th It portrays Man as the spectacle of the ages, the child of destiny, the plaything of the gods, rather than as the conquering hero of all creation, as he appears through the in toxication of our own home-brewed films. And realism! A spade is a spade, and nei ther a Parlor Ornament in the corner, nor a skeleton in the closet. And whether this is really a mark of strength, or merely lack of 1 perfectly proper sensitiveness and refine Ido not know. But there is only one guess as to what our various un-American or typically American censor boards would say Then, Griffith. Here we find, first of all, an emotional quality that transcends any thing I have so far found in any foreign films. We find a wealth of human, instead experience ment it is high time to be picking up the frazzled ends of a comparison suggested in these illustrious and to wit we ‘a's future position in the great coming film-spectacles come in we find interesting divergencies. as well as the others that come with it to prove that it is no mere freak n counterpart By Myron M ful asset, this. anding America Against Old Yurrup | Where Forcign rs. Properly divergencies. organization ness (or inab the rest Asa whole, th ably outr: trying tog still are owe it to our accident, we Eecertin There i Pictures Worth Watching THE MISLEADING LADY The Taming of the Shrew in a brand new dress. DINTY All the box-office hoped PASSION® The French Revolution, made in Germany WAY DOWN EAST The screen's greatest melodr marred by slapstick WHAT DO MEN WANT? ‘A long but dramatic preachment MY LADY'S LATCHKEY The gentleman burglar love. BILLIONS A foolish little film with touches of real art THE ROOKIES Mildly. pleasin KISMET Fine acting in the Movie East POLLY WITH A PAST ‘A new star in an old rile HELIOTROPE ‘How to hound a woman to mur MIDSUMMER MADNESS The old domestic near-tragedy well constructed. falls in ETURN nothingness * Exceptio ally goo 23 Strarns (“Lexso” of merely dramatic, detail: the petting of a dog, the cherishing of a child, the return to a place of tender memories On the other hand, we find life gifted sentimentalist, with too much of love, too much of sex. : in the eyes of foreign artists, life is more the Great j Adventure, and love, subordinated in | us love rules supreme and the final fade-out is sacredly. re served for the clutch (ef broadening \ sense of structure, one might almost say of r the the world nked by Take the French film Damned ¢ prophesies death within a month for the Five; the prophecy ap- pears to be unfolding with hi i five, believing himself about to follow those who are supposedly , dead, discovers the whole thing a hoax, planned to get his money. 7 love theme, but it is distinctly subordinated. { A wonder: i listorted, by a 1 x 1 mere episode, with De Mille, C. our and W.). investigations, we fin other | i Americans; a basic honesty, an unwilling- ity) to subordinate or fully commercialize art, for 4 films of Europe are at present almost unbeliev } our American product. But here we are Hl Ivze just now the potentialities of the two. i The Five Cursed Gentlemen” as typi the best of the general European run, and compare it with mmercial film ntlemen”” a The Misleading Lady.” street beggar, insulted, ih 1 us accuracy when the last of the There is a cleverness, a marked ingenuity in the con- . struction work that is often enough sadly ab- sentin American films, and there isa certain ‘ honesty of “fake’’ that we lack most de- ‘ plorably. For example, scenes taken on board ship are vividly true to life, where on ij ur American sereen the whole effect would y be thrown away through waving the ship (i up and down before our eves because of i the stupidly universal convention that every } thing must be kept a-rocking. {i “The Misleading Lady” tells of a stage | i struck society beauty who vamps a he-man a bet, only in turn to be kidnaped by the infuriated victim of the joke, and chained toa table leg until she falls in love with him. j That may sound foolish, but it’s excel lent inment. Better, far better, than the live French Gentlemen maidit. There is a good plot form,” that most European films seem to lack, and fh ality. Also rain scenes so soak you to the skin, But j heme tops em all. | a, then, against the world! Dar ing sentimentalists, invincible in our sublime i over-confidence, against. the great artists | frab realism, of Old Yurrup. good construction, or emotional q wet they almos the love \mer comicbooks.com