Judge — February 2, 1924 — page 19: what you’re looking at

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

Yeah ! hae Mr e Smile Oh, Mister De Smile! I wanna be a screen-star! for Baby Peggy! Aha! What can you do? THE OLD HOKUM BUCKET by George Mitchell osMOPOLITAN has achieved something new in the films in “The Great White Way,” though it follows pretty closely what was done by Famous Players and Goldwyn in “Hollywood” and “Souls for Sale” and that is: they have put the overhead on the program. In this picture Hearst has gone through his organization and summoned all hands on deck. Those who write for him, those who draw for him volleyed and thundered somewhere in this picture. Take these celebrities out of the show window and you have a very, very mediocre film. We aren’t so sure that he mightn’t have gone the whole hog and used the news reels that show us the Prince of Wales, our President Coolidge, Bill Tilden in action andwhatnot. Probably some one will see the dramatic value that lies in these scraps of news and work them into a super picture. With a clever film cutter what a picture could be made. Think of the suspense, the gripping drama in a scene in which Henry Ca- bot Lodge and Woodrow Wil- son might be shot at breakfast. Which would shoot the other is not for us to say. We meant “shot” as it is used on the screen. What could be done with Volstead, double- exposed with a bottle of hootch, we leave to your own nimble invention. The idea is a brilliant one, though we claim it, and it is yours for the asking. All we reserve to our kith, kin and assigns is 90 Per cent. of the royalties. Of the “Great White Way” perhaps we had better remain as silent as the movies themselves. When you tear off the outer wrappings of Irvin S. Cobb, Tex Rickard, Joe Humphries and Arthur Brisbane (we should have placed Brisbane first) you will find the same old hokum. Not even the wide ex- Pansiveness of Cobb could hide the old wrinkled trick of selling ahorse race through a dishonest jockey nor even the more de- “Anna Christie “The Great White V “Long Live the King “Rosita” —Mary i “A Woman of Pa “Our Hospitalit; “Black Oxen™ “Through the Dar! breeks. enough. “Under the Red Rob “Stephen Steps Out’ What’s Wrong with These Pictures? “The Covered Wagon” —Covered with glory. “The Ten Commandments"—Almost as good as the book. ie”—As good as the pl “The White Sister” —Lillian y"—Not as electrifying as the original. Jackie the prince of the movies. “The Hunchback of Notre Dame’—A dame good picture. “Scaramouche”—Revolving about the French Revolution. stle in Spain. —Chaplin the clown turns tragic. aton is always welcome. fine picture. —A Boston Blackie finger-biter. “Tiger Rose”—Leonore Ulric comes back; ““Big Brother”—Tom Moore in a high-class bit of low life “Don’t Call It Love’—But you can call it good. “The Dangerous Maid"—Constance “The Call of the Canyon”—Many are “Flaming Youth”—The Flapper’s paradise. Not under far enough. rbank: “The Temple of Venus”—Shapes up well. crepit one of doping a boxing-fighter to throw a bout that the lover of the girl you want may be ruined. If you have any faith in our mean ability, believe us there are better pictures that cost a tenth the money to make and unless we are wrong it’s going to need the selling of a lot of Americans and Journals if nearly a million was spent on “The Great White Way.” The cast enlists the adequate talents of T. Roy Barnes, Anita Stewart, Oscar Shaw, Hal Forde, Arthur Brisbane and the whole Hearst works. HEN we read “Black Oxen’’ we felt that Gertrude Atherton in one of the leap years of her early womanhood had asked for the hand of a newspaper column- ist and he had turned his thumbs down. Years later, still smarting under the rebuke, she had, in this novel, idealized him just to show him up. We have met nearly all the latter day columnists and, if our hy- pothesis is correct, we have a moving picture of Miss Ather- ton’s cup of joy running ov when in her mind’s eye she sees columnists make physical com- parison with their debonair screen prototype. We do not desire to draw down the wrath of a group of men whose patter familiar makes the world saner for democracy but, if their sense of humoris all it’s cracked up to be, we are certain they will add their smile to ours when they take stock of the handsome Conway Tearle. Miss Ather- ton’s novel is well done in this strikingly good film and we are inclined to predict that these great black oxen will tread the world for many a performance to come. In the thirty-odd years that Corinne Griffith slips from her shapely shoulders in this story, times have changed for the better. We remember in those days that fiction, dealing with the stand-between- (Continued on page 25) at home in Rome. Thi no steer. but not all the madge breaks into called; few good s heir takes the air. comicbooks.com