Judge — June 2, 1923 — page 17: what you’re looking at

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

It all came about when the director cried “shoot” to the camera man. “WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PIGIURE?” by George Mitchell gE pon’? know whether Charley Ray ever said: “I regret that I have but one pair of bare feet to give for my country.” He might hav« They're the actingest pair of feet of our wide acquaintance. We often shudder to think what film fans would do. if Charley were to lose his histrionic pedals. They cover a lot of footage in “The Girl I Loved,” in the first part of which he is his old foolish adolescent big-toe-wiggling, bashful self. Barefoot Charley. Then he plays a low-down trick on you for just when he’s got you giggling all ovef with his nonsense, he grows into manhood and, little by little, reaches over and wrings out your heart till it’s dry as toast and your Adam’s apple is worn out racing up and down your throat like an elevator in an office building. We aren’t so sure that what he does to you is for your good. Perhaps you'll be a better man for the emotional up- heaval he gives you in this fine picture. But there isn’t a doubt in our mind about the consummate art with which he does it. If you can sit through the mental torture he suffers over the loss of the girl he loved, you either haven't any heart at all, or it’s us hard as a bank president's. It’s the finest piece of suppressed emo- tion we’ve seen on the screen in many moons and, in spite of the wreck he made of us, we thank Ray for this splendid ex- hibition of pantomimic art. We take off our hat also to Joseph De Grasse for his direction and, in. particular, for a most thrilling runaw The picture through- out is handled in a simple, realistic manner. » hokum, no artificialit Patsy Ruth Miller is charming as Mary, as demure and lovely a little lady as ever an’s heart, and Wallace Ram- sey is manly enough to inspire your ad- miration, though he is the cause of Ray’s anguish. If you like R nd we can't see why you don’t, you like him the better for this his best picture. I THERE'S a type of picture we could easily get on without, “The Isle of Lost Ships” is it. And what's more we can’t see why an artist of Tourneur’s Milton Sills and Anna Q. Nilsson. 15 caliber wasted his time on it. We never will understand why men and women should be forced to marry one another for no better reason than to bring about the Dempsey-Gibbons scene which immedi- ately precedes the wedding hi We can see the lips of the heroine move as she lisps ungrammatically: “May the best man win.” Then the two men clash and the big fight is on. We are not in harmony with this psychology at all and feel like breaking into the picture in defense of the young lady and her grammar, but that we that we would be hopelessly beat up. We have, in our meager experience, hob- nobbed with all classes from royalty up but we have never met with a woman eel /who had the sporting instinct to marry a stranger out of hand solely on his ring record. We doubt it’s being done in any stra ty these feminist when a woman’s place is anywhere but in the home. Hence it is that we found in this picture not only a t of soc The Hier the fatter. ficiality, but to embrace it both as to story and as to its scenic investure with the one exception possibly of the Sargasso Sea at the time the submarine poked its periscope up through the flotsam. Very fine photography that! Milton Sills and Anna Q. Nilsson did what they could with this shoddy mate- rial. So did Frank Campeau and Walter Long, all good screen stars, but you can- not make a silk purse without the aid of a silkworm, HERE is a place on the screen for the kind of thing Walter Hiers is attempt- But he isn’t altogether getting away We are heartily in favor of this 1 light comedy. xty Cents an Hour,” Hiers does as well as he can, but the story is much lighter than our heavyweight comedian and the old expedient of making him the goat in a bank robbery is dragged in. There isn’t much chance for anybody to show off in this picture but Jacqueline Logan is good to look at and plays as well as she is permitted. The rest all do their best to help out their fat friend. We, too, wish him well and a better picture next time. ing. with it