Judge — September 8, 1923 — page 24: what you’re looking at

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

When a double-exposure goes wrong. EMOTION IN MOTION PICTURES so deep a regard for Y Talmadge that we ap- proach the job of reviewing her new picture, “Ashes of Vengeance,” run- ning at the Apollo in New York, with the guilty feeling of being predisposed to praise it. But our bigoted conscience, the only thing we like to believe we are afraid of, rises and, shaking the finger of justice full in our face, hisses between clenched teeth: “Ossifer, do your duty! Hence, it is that we are pleased to be able to truthfully say that we like “Ashes of Vengeance,” the big, artificial, mechani- ‘onstructed spectacle in which the fovely: ‘Norma is displaying again her feminine charm. We are still young enough (in spirit only, dammitall) to get a whale of a kick out of Norma’s pathos. Perhaps, it. is the sense of chivalry born to all men that shoots little thrills up and down our chiropractical spine every time she pulls that appealing look in her eyes. It doesn’t matter. She does it and we fall, believing we are a better if a weaker n We couldn't see Norma every day and do our work unless either of us’ were blindfolded. We could have slapped Mr. Wallace Beery, when he made her We hope some day to meet Mr. B when he’s bound toa tree so we may speak to him about it. It’s all we can do to say a kind word of his actin, But just to show you the difference between men we'll say that he comes nearer to the standard set by Emil Jannings than any other 1 us person on our screen. It’s remarkable, the resemblance of these two fine actors- Beery in this picture makes a perfect Skunk-Duce. There, we've done our duty by our bigoted conscience again, and can return to Norma. She’s got a sympathetic réle in this young, Sixteenth Century French arist who falls in love with 'Conw seen him in this flim, he's good. He almost makes you believe it’s all true. It’s the darn- It isn’t, you understand. by George Mitchell dest bunch of hokum you’ er seen, all costumes, and devil-may-care | sword flashing and that—with Conway at the head of a stairway as crowded as an escalator on a barg: in Gimbe Does he sweep "em bac He does like so many flies. Dumas used to do a lot of it. here Tearle chap is a half-brother to D’Artagnan. You couldn't kill him if fifty men, armed to the teeth, hit him while he was asleep. But, it’s good pageantry and it’s full of romantic sigh-pulling stuff, and when you’ve seen Norma slip over that cow- eyed appeal that shakes your confidence in being able to say “no” to her, you'll come out on the street and wish you wore a big feather in your hat and tights— if you can get away with °em—and could swank up and down Main street, picking an engagement with ten or twelve men who were beating up a beautiful but defenseless maid. It’s great stuff—to dream about—but we'd like to see Norma in something t had to do with real men and women. They're just as wooden-headed as pup- pets—but we understand them better. And this SILENT PARTNER” is a picture that. s to do with Wall street. That's what we don’t understand about it. Money has always evaded us. We know that money talks but it’s never said any- thing to us but s0d-by What we do understand is that Owen Moore doesn’t help the picture much. We don’t like to start a review with a knock, but—well, probably, we'd better talk about Leatrice Joy—only Owen Moore doesn’t register anything to 1 He can walk through more feet of film without leaving a footprint than most feel anybody else we know. that he’s but half trying. That’s w makes us mad with him. He can be in- teresting, but he isn’t, in “The Silent Partner.” Leatrice Joy almost ran away from him when he went broke. She was on the steamer with Robert Edeson, but she too has—in the picture—a bigoted conscience We always 22 and returned to Owen, And we rushed down the aisle and tried to jump into the water, we were that upse “The Silent Partner” isn’t much of a picture. Owen plunges in the stock market and makes a fortune. He and Leatrice are married and he crowds jewels and clothing on her, but she, wis: in her generation, puts by a neat little fortune against the day she knows Owen will go broke. Robert Edeson is a low- down trickster, who wants eatrice for sry own, so what does he do but cross Owen, thinking that when Owen runs out of money, Leatrice will run into his arms. But Leatrice, she is steadfast and with the money she held out on Owen, they go away and live happily every after. It’s the kind of play all married women should see. Maybe then we'd have less jewels and more bankbooks to fall back on when we go broke. We men must stick together and make our wives take of us when fortune, the fickle jade, gives us the icy shoulder. Pisrepes suchas “Little Johnny Jones’ go a long way to take the curse out of life and put it into your lap. Nothing has tired us so thoroughly as watching Johnny Hines flip his way through Eng- lish society with such scintillating shafts of comedy as sticking his monocle in place with chewing gum. When you stack this kind of thing up against ‘the se of comedy insinuated by Tom eraghty into “Hollywood”; the acting of Dick Barthelmess in “Tolable Da Ernest Torrence’s work in “The Cove Yagon” and charge the same price for a -ket, you are literally snatching lolly- pops from the mouths of babes and suck- lings. Moronism may never be swept clear of this, our native heath. It is not for us to deal it a body blow. | “Leave every- thing live,” is our motto, but “Little Johnny Jones” should be labeled by a just board of censors that those of us who like good pictures may be spared such films as this. (Continued on page 32) ‘mis V repr the toc: milli man put est | mov whic too | of tr trav sary sumi mod to r ton dati geth sligh the at s comicbooks.com