Judge — May 7, 1921 — page 13: what you’re looking at

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

IN THE MOVIES, NEW MOVES Futurist Myrox M. Stearns (“Lrxso’ Caesare, the somnambulist, is a bear. Deader’n a door-nail, even when he’s walking around But the real wallop comes when the guy who’s telling us al} about these old Caligari tors finaily traces the new Caligari to his lair, and finds out he’s superintending a crazy-house P least, we didn’t make it Now that we know how little money it’s make, we're anyway proud of that It merely invaded us. It came; it was scen; it was thoroughly conquered ving to lhe foreign-born Cabinet of Dr. Caligari The American Coffin of Futurist Films. But it’s a sad tale, mates. so gather close around me, ete in war-torn Yurrup, it seems a few ignorant foreigners. utterly unable to master the essional photoplavwright Where a window should — self Same with the her Our story begins abroad. There technique of the pt money by Einsteining an entire film have been straight, they made it crooked. The heroine deviation from normalcy. In every scene the film showed the footprints of the hand of whulist. w that to be g the Futurist, the Imagist. and the Gosh Here, in America-Thank-God, we kr a film has to be careful money, it has to come up t cepted lines. Skinner, the Money-King, makes t strangle-hold on her lovely old father, prosperous, and Beauty very, very happy Little Child, and a Chase, and an Elope- ment, and a Fancy Ball, and a Robbery or so, and at least’ thiee revolvers. Also beautiful scenery and a heroine under thirty, or seemingly so. Even our very cheapest scenarists or scenarioists or scenaryists know that much But these poor Yurropean boobas were so much ignoranter than vou can imagine that they made Dr. Caligari up out of their own heads, without paying any attention at all to the rules. Naturally, it’s pretty bad. At that, there's a story in it, if you can find it. An old doctor reads of how another old doctor, centuries before, obtained mental control over a patient, a somnambulist, and made him commit murder. He got awe with it—in the old record—by having a dummy of the somnambulist in the som nambulist’s cabinet, whenever the real honest-to-goodness, bena fide somnam- bulist went out for a killing, so that there was always a perfect alibi. Suspicion was diverted, And the doctor in the film, after reading about it, pulls the same stunt. Pretty tricky stuff. lone they left comparatively” pure It has to make money certain standards and follow ac- It has to open with the evil advances that Scut May Love Allus Did Love, with another mortgage; and it ends with Harold Dewey placing his f firmly on Scut’s broken neck, and taking May Love ten- derly in his arms as he kisses her on the last ten feet of film But no! It has to show Good triumphant, and Evil in irons, and Nobility Then, we realize the whole varn’s merely going on in the mind of a lunatic See? tricd to make From accent on the another leven to And to make of it. by getting a Obviously has to have a ind that the h Caligari. is a perfectly good doc It's not as plain as that in the picture These foreigners w so crazy it’s hard to look at it without getting that way vour a perfectly seric brow that's yet been produced, here or elsewhere who're ready to laugh at all impressionistic work, it places an effectiveness that is almost uncanny. Well, so much for that. The film came as an example of what foreigners may do. twisted backgrounds, and all Mraid to take a chance gold brick of a knockout the thing to d theatre, in New York, or some other city large cnough to boast good supply of nuts, and advertise it until anyone likely to come to the theatre would know something of what t Us movie folks know better'n that! ing to let Old Yurrup slip one over on us that casy! First. we retitle the picture throughout, putting in straight Pictures Worth Watching: THE CABINET OF DR GARI* Ice-cream for nuts SENTIMENTAL TOMMY* Nearly Eighty Per Cent. Barrie A YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR'S COURT* Nearly Eighty Per cent Twain THE FOUR HORSEMEN* Nearly Eighty Per Cent. Ibanez. WAY DOWN EAST* One Hundred Per Cent. Griffith, THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS* Ninety-Eight Per Cent. Tour neur—Two Per Cent Cooper THE OATH ‘A marriage between Jew and Gentile results in a Movie THE KID* Artistic foolishness. THE GILDED LILY* ‘A reformer goes bed: his re formee gets good. PASSION* What foreigners con do. MAN: WOMAN-MARRIAGE Spectacle stuf. OVER THE HILL* ‘A whole movieful of ingratitude *Well above average CALI Mark 13 1 of his booby-hateh, our friend nd may cure him of it yet but it’s there » made the film made the whole thing s critical standpoint, with the it’s probably the best picce of film-work Even for those us in ver the Atlantic Spooky titles And nobody’ knew what to make Didn't know whether it was a was to take it to some small expect. We're not forward, triple-ply, Lasky-to-Sennett-to Ince captions, that explain the whole film thoroughly, without destroying more than oh, say a paltry thirty or forty per cent its effectiveness Then—vi, voi, would you believe it?—we throw it on cold, at the Capitol Theatre in Manhattan, seating Umpty-Umpth Umpth people. As well try to mesmerize a bull with a filagree ball! How did they take it?—How could they take it! A few, here and there, burbled about how wonderful it was. A few more, here and there, saw its effectiveness and regretted the misguided zeal that had prompted the retitling. Still more shook their heads in amazement, and started innumerable dis- cussions as to whether it was really a photo: play or a rabbit swimming toward England in a heavy sea. The critics side-stepped smoothly, And all the rest, the great ma- jority, came out disgusted, hardly knowing whether to be mad, or merely tired. So again we have proved the complete fu- tility of foreign art Hooray for American Movies! comicbooks.com