Judge — May 18, 1929 — page 25: what you’re looking at

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

JUDGE IN ov will travel far before you'll see a Y ance better than Ruth Chatte all-talking melodrama, “Madame would have to go many miles further to find a more ancient piece of hokum than this twenty-five-year-old dramatization of a woman of parts who remained till the last a me Lionel pure at heart. Barrymore dirceted this movie and, strangely en h, showed neither extraordinary skill wertainty. Tt is a sound, run-of-the- mill job of direction. The court-r time movie melodrama with all the steps out. Lionel nor amateur ym scene is old- must have shed many a reminiscent tear over it. Ruth Chatterton mana ind feeling into the growling throat of the tone, the rest of the cast sound awfully silly. is particularly so of Raymond Hackett, actor who persists in whining and crying th es to breathe so much life movie- This juvenile : moment he enters a court-room, His grandmother must have been fi son, the rea- htened in a court-room; whatever the minute he faces a jury of twelve men, honest and true (at $7 a day, Hollywood ), he grovels, whimpers, and pleads before them with all the ob- sequious dejection of a scenario writer asking for a raise in a painful effort te convince th . and pre- sumably the audience, that he is being torn to shreds by the cords, The one unspoiled scene in the picture is a drunken terton, [tis one of the best things [ have ever seen or heard in the Out- of this, and there is rbsolutely no reas this senti- mental, old-fash D PSPITE dollars waves of cmotion lapping over his vocal monologue by Miss ( vies, side her general excellence n for wasting time or ned moral tract. the fact that the y spent thousands of advertising him, the Paramount company rvy trick on Maurice Chevalier, the He is one of the most en- nd polished comedians I have ever seen. For his first movie in this country they give him that played a. s« French music-hall star. JUDGING THM .o77 and worn story about the poor singer who although his girl betra he steps before the curtain his opening night. story Brice, and s him just before This has been sed successfully by folson, Jesse f mother love. rod little t host of lesser adinirers Chevalier does not do so well by it; he has too ge a time singing to really ery when he finds Daisy has turned him down. His movie is called “Innocents of Paris’; inno cents of Hollywood would be a om title. ‘There is another Sonny Boy in this movie. Since Al started the paternal fad of small boys has marched on Hollywood. Si none of them has been anything but a nice litt they have not ers, stool-pigeons, orn J SUS- picion that any day we'll learn that they were really t Lon Chaney after all. “Innocents of Paris” appropriate Ison an army far vi wot le it-club proprietors, but [have a sneaki neeast as b is padded with some news reel shots of Paris in order to give it atmosphere; it is an all-talking picture with some of th T have ever heard in it, and it is of no use whatsoey except as a means of he As + there is only his charm to pay for all that advertising in the Saturday Evening ast, and the rotten story and his dithculty with the ish language cut that siderably. worst hams r ring and seeing Chevalier. has no sing down on asset con If you have never seen Chevalier, it might be worth your while to invest fifty cents in an hour at “Innocents of Paris” bat don't judge Chevalier by this one, It's pretty bad. An all-talking movie cal head of nothing at all. tragic superficiality of it has a murder and Seandal” comes under It purports to show the Santa ty, and ourt-room scene as evidence. It is directed so poorly you are only dimly aware Barbara so that a murder trial is going on, and even then you have a fatalistie feeling that the hero will soon be up and about. He is and there's no reason to rejoice It's an unusually bad movie. The Movie Guide “Alibi” —Best directed talkie to date. “Coquette” —Farnest efforts by Mary Pickford. Worth seeing ‘Broadway Melody” — worst feat “Duke Steps Out” —Williac Haines in a silly fight story “Bellamy Case"—Good entertainment. Hearts bn Dixie’ — AI) Stepin Fetebit worth seeing. “Christiana” — ee in Hol land, With Danet “The Letter’* Jeanne Fagels in a “Madame x" “Maah’s Ark —I refuse to see it, “Lei “Nothing But the Truth” —Itichind olefaehioant (ree Leg and » this ies, "William Boyd in a ve Orient. comicbooks.com