Judge — October 8, 1921 — page 28: what you’re looking at

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

NEW MOVES IN THE MOVIES e TANDING, patiently as any well- S bred army mule, in the double line outside a long, narrow mo- tion picture palace in the crashing village of Chicago, I was surprised to have the man alongside address me suddenly, shifting his foot and, as it were, rattling the harness. “TI like this guy,” he said; “he’s such a nut!” “Yes,” I agreed, “I’m a little that way myself.” Of course we were both speaking about Douglas Fairbanks. Finally the sad period of waiting for the American Night’s Entertain- ment came to an end. “One,” said the tired young lady at the door, holding up her forefinger. “One,” repeated the plump young lady at the ticket box, holding up a plump fore- finger. “One!” declared the butch- er’s assistant with the rope, holding up his thumb, and jerking his head sideways to indicate that I was to get on past out of his way and be quick about it. So I went in. During the hour or less that I had been standing outside, waiting to be entertained, they had run off nearly half the picture. On the screen were period costumes, a king and queen, a cardinal. The orchestra (it was an organ, but never mind)—the orchestra was playing one of the airs noticeable with “Deception.” No Doug. No stunts. No leaping from a church-steeple to land a-straddle a galloping horse and escape from the famous forty vil- lains by the quiver of a hair. And when at last Friend Fairbanks did return, it was with a long sword and a cape and a hat you could flourish and a. little mustache that went with all the rest. It was almost a miracle. Go see it for yourself. It’s one of the best pictures that’s yet been put on the American screen. We've been passing through a Three By Myron M. STEARNS good deal of a slump in American picture production. Not officialy, you understand—but as a matter of cold, private fact. Not financially—though there it’s merely a matter of the slump still descending upon us. But in the ephemeral realm of merit. The line of fine American productions ushered in with “Humoresque” and “The Copperhead,” carried along with “Over the Hill” and “’Way Down East,” rather ended up, for a time, with “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.” It’s been a dull, uninspired summer. Then, to prove that after all the world do move, even in the hysteri- cal realms of celluloid, along comes our one and only, ne plus ultra, e pluribus unum, ol’ reliable Doug and makes ’em all sit up. Fact is, we’ve grown so accus- tomed to watching Mr. Fairbanks do a window-sill solo on the flying arch that it’s something of a shock to have him come romping into the arena devoted, say, exclusively to D. W. Griffith in this country. as pos- sibly the man they call Lubitsch in Foreign Parts. But when Douglas romps, he romps. And now he’s In. Reflect: It’s no easy thing for a popular American screen star to break away from what “his audi- ence” expects. The only reason Mrs. Douglas Fairbanks has remained “our Mary” so long is because she’s not only been always very much the same, but very good at it. Hon. Wm. Hart, good as he has always been, is sinking slowly out of sight because of the difficulty of being anything except what the public expect Bill Hart to be. And in time, the public will become tired of almost anything. Until Doug latterly began to uncover this amazing ability to be at once different, and better, there were indubitable signs that the public was 28 Musketeers beginning to wonder if before long it wouldn’t get tired of him. While our All-American Movie aggregation was sitting around wondering which sort of picture would make the most money, not so many months ago, along came this series of fillums from Germany— Passion and Deception and Gypsy Blood, with The Golem and the weird Cabinet of Dr. Caligari on the side. Different, to be sure, and also quite “impossible” from our money-mak- ing standpoint. “Passion,” for instance, kicked miserably around New York laboratories for a year and more with a price of only a few thou- sand for the American rights on it— and no takers. It was a “period” play, for one thing—and “The Pub- lic doesn’t want costume plays.” But finally somebody bit. Bought “Passion” and a couple more, and turned ’em loose. The rest is merely a matter of movie history. The de- spised “Passion” film brought in more than a hundred dollars for every dollar sunk in the purchase of the American rights. Evidently, “The Public” wasn’t so much against costume plays and all the rest as most American producers had been in the habit of thinking. That was where Douglas, likely, saw his chance. As one of that un- fortunate species, known as Think- ing Stars, he’d been wondering how to shift his stride, increase his speed, and get away to a new lease of justly popular life. He watched the demon- stration of German-made spectacle- film, and realized that “The Public” would welcome a good story from any age or climate, and was even capable of recording a rousing recep- tion to work of real artistic merit, along with other things. So, with “The Three Musketeers” lying ready to hand for a vehicle, Doug packed his mental grips and (Continued on page 32)