Judge, 1927-03-19 · page 21 of 36
Judge — March 19, 1927 — page 21: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page critiques Charles Klein's stage play "The Third Degree," adapted into a Warner Bros. film by Michael Curtiz starring Dolores Costello. The column praises the film's visual cinematography and modern camera work but mocks its melodramatic intertitles (printed dialogue cards) for clichéd sentimentality. The satirical point: while the movie succeeds visually as modern cinema, its heavy-handed subtitles undercut this achievement with overwrought, dated theatrical language. Examples like "You made your bed, now lie in it" exemplify the stilted moralizing that Judge found laughable. The bottom illustration shows a woman using an absurdly elaborate roadside danger sign—far more "expensive" and conspicuous than necessary—to warn drivers near Memphis, Connecticut. This visual joke parallels the film critique: the warning works despite its excessive theatricality, much like the movie succeeds despite its clumsy subtitles. Both represent outdated, overwrought approaches to modern communication.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
JUDGE ING, tbe MOVIES”: ~ nantes Kueiy’s “The Third ( Degree,” you probably re- member, is a melodrama whose educational object took the curse off it for the highbrows of a simpler dz Now Michael Curtiz, for Warner Bros., has done it into a movie, featuring Dolores Costello and a few old- timers like Louise Dresser, Rock- liffe Fellowes, Kate Price, Tom Santschi and David Torrence. And he has made it an execeding- ly interesting, startling, movie pictorially, using the camera in a highly ingenious and thoroughly modern only to show the to express the players. If only he might have stopped there! But he also seen fit to sow the thing with subtitles of which the following are sentativ even a manner not movements but emotions of the repre- You made your bed, now lie in it. Get out!” “Howard Jeffries, Sr.. de- *y Williom Morris Houphton | | plitter | owe of Satan” —Plush Magnificent” —Sword play We're in the Naty Now" Upatage”’—Authentic pe “What Price Glory —Pic 1 Faust”—A fine picture Canadian" —Drab. ‘Old Ironsides"—A beautiful b Michael Strogoff™ The Gorilla Hunt Stranded in P¢ Exciting melodrama. Most interesting. nd Bebe Soft hard-boiled 4 bedroom Tell It to the Marines Chaney better Murray flees D'Arcy But quite le nd florid Valencia’ “A Little Jou “Don Juan “The Lady in E “Plesh and the De The Music Mast The Po P The Kid Brother” Improper dream bo triumph and amusing satire nde or farce loud, laugh Lloyd, but 1 When a Ma “New York’. The General” —( McFadden’s F ning feature Very mild Dix *—Asinine. Buster Keaton. Che Klin is the re pensive but effective danger sign near Memphis, Conn., gets 100% scendant of the old bocker aristocracy dous pride of race. affair. Knicker- with tremen- been informed of your You must come to your at once and give up this low-bred cireus girl.’” “Do you think, sir, I could love him more were I of the upper class?” senses “Go and never enter my house again!’ “But the brief honeymoon came to a rude:awakening. Love must face the test of a cheap flat and a jobless husband.” ‘Don’t be blue, darling. Noth- ing matters so long as we have cach other.” “Tam on to your kind, Under- wood. Stay away or TI...” “"You...mean... that?” “Damn you, you'll break up another home.’ ” ““His fingerprints are on the gun, Chief.’ ‘Right or wrong, from my wife never I love him, (Continued on page 26) driver attention, comicbooks.com