Judge — April 23, 1921 — page 12: what you’re looking at

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

—— 2 I i NEW MOVES IN THE MOVIES les King Arthur in American Celluloid By Myron M. Stearns (“Lenso”) MINCE first the fillums began to flicker, a certain loud lamentation has been heard in the land. From authors: “ This is not my story! My brain child has been done to death, and this addled foundling sub- stituted by the wicked nurse!—I demand an accounting! From critics: “* What could you expect. in a mere movie anyway?" Fr m the public: “Truly, it is not the story we expected to 8 after having read the book. Still, it flickers—and at least the book didn’t do that. Besides, that was great where she throws the custard pie in his face at the big dramatic moment; in the book she only said: ‘Sir, Howdairyoo!” Long, thin authors, short, fat authors, great big two hundred pounders and little rapid-fire authors of hardly more than eighteen or twenty-two calibre altogether, bobbed-hair lady- authors, hoot-owl consort authors, truly artistic authors, with a silken cord hanging from their nose-grabbers, and frankly com- mercial authors with red faces and great popularity—poetic authors even, poets and poctines, have united in the wail: The silly, incompetent, ungrateful, inefficient, discourteous, dishonest, insulting, disgraceful, immoral, unblushing and alto- gether unthinkable movies have turned our stories inside out and upside down, until we're ashamed of 'em and don’t want to own ‘em or recognize ‘em as ours—and haven't even given us proper screen credit! But now—let us harness up the old family microscope and examine a couple of interesting specimens, pulling the wings off and looking directly into the works—quite scientifically. Mark Twain stories, both of 'em “ Huck- leberry Finn,” and “A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.” First, “Huckleberry Finn,” done into a photoplay by a veteran director guaranteed against heart failure or film-shock, for Mr. Paramount. We must speak of it reverently, as of the dead; for it was produced months ago, and in the absence of any crystallized vinion to the contra the only photo- plays warranting mention or discussion are in the column of “latest releases.”” Ordi- narily, films more than a few months old are regarded as out-of-date, older-than-the-hills, 1, defunct, dead and buried in the country. All flicker-shows, like the good, still die young. Huckleberry Finn,” then, an old, old film, made more'’n a year ago, showed us fine photography, a good deal of pictorial artistry almost ina Tourncur vein, and a painstaking, conscientious, meticulous effort to do Mark and Huck justic nd follow the story ab- so-lu-tely. As much of the yarn as could be used was used; nothing was brought into the story that did not exist in the book. COURT* humor. PASSION* olution. THE _KID* THE NUT. Paleface Pictures Worth Watching A YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR'S Two hours of good American THE FOUR HORSEMEN* Long narrative-drama. THE JUCKLINS* Southern mountaineer story. WAY DOWN EAST Artistic thriller. ‘Spectacte-film of the French Rev- OVER THE HILL* ‘Mother certainly has a hard time. Chaplin's best. Not Douglas Fairbanks’ best. THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS* Lo the poor Indian loves the THE SIN THAT WAS HIS* The gambler turns priest. THE GILDED LiLy* An old story well retold. THE OLD SWIMMIN’ HOLE* Little red school-house stuff. “Well above average. You'd think the result would be a Mark Twain fila, wouldn't yvou?—Well, it wasn’t. It was a Taylor film, Mark Twain enthusiasts could find nothing to criticize, so far as fidelity to the story went; but some way they couldn't seem to get into the spirit of the thing. ‘*Huckleberry Finn,” on the screen, was about as satisfactory as a last year’s tennis ball would be, re painted, after being left outdoors all winter. Pretty cnough to look at, and all right until you tried to make it bounce. Then, Yankee in King Arthur's Court.” The “Yankee” takes all kinds of liberties with the original Mark Twain story—some good, some not so good. It utilizes up-to-the-minute slang, and motorcycles, and the last word in properly conventionalized motion-picture sets and “drama” and hero and heroine and burglars and “situation” for the prologue-and-epilogue pieces of the story that take you into and out of the King Arthur part. The photography is often not very good, and the scene-for-scene pictorial beauty of “ Huckle- Finn on the Screen” is lacking, although there are many eautiful shots of old England, showing fine California road: But—and it’s a splendid, emphatic, broad-chested, stop-and- take-notice “but,” too—the spirit of the Mark Twain story has unquestionably been retained. There’s the fine, satiric play upon the over-emphasis of knighthood’s virtues—the clear por- 1 of the barbarities of Arthur's time—the cruelties, the ignorance, the credulities. The dogs cat bones under the table —prisoners are chained and tortured in the dungeons—the peasants are helpless before the great. Merlin, the mighty ma- ian, is full of humorous motions and charms and futilities, playing on the trust- ing simplicity of his king and people, and almost believing his own foolishness himself. All that is Mark Twain. And the Yanke with his impertinence, his slang, his irrever- ence for established things, his humor, his jesting in the face of death—he is done quite in the Mark Twain vein, too, although the character is changed and a bit less logical. In “Huckleberry Finn’ a grand and noble and high-minded attempt has been made to transfer a book, a printed story, verbatim, to the screen. It can’t be done. In Yankee in King Arthur's the spirit of the story has been caught, the main thoughts and contrasts, and suggestions appreciated, and then the whole thing has been competently retold by a new story- teller, willing to use the old material when it suited, or dicard it when it failed to please or seemed too difficult to reproduce. Notas good a story-teller, to be sure, as the original; the “ Yankee" on the screen is not the equal of his literary ancestor; but good enough to give us a rattling good film, and to show: It's the only way it can be did or done. comicbooks.com