Life — June 4, 1925 — page 30: what you’re looking at

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

. ” “The Sporting Venus [" is said that Marshall Neilan uses no continuity when he produces a picture: he merely jots down a few notes on the back of an old envelope and then, after a few scenes have been shot, loses the envelope. Having seen a great many of Mr. Neilan’s efforts as represented on the screen, I can easily believe this en- velope rumor. For the average Neilan picture has about as much plot, as much coherence as the libretto of a Bon Ton burlesque show. If he starts out with a visible idea, he manages to mislay it during the second recl—and from then on, the story resolves itself into a mad, “every-man-for-himself” scramble. “The Sporting Venus” is typical of Neilan at his worst and at his best. It is foolish, inconsequential and spineless, and yet it is entertaining. There's a certain spontancity about Neilan that as SY S te will not down, even when he is making no sense whatever, and the spectator (hard-boiled or soft, as the case may be) is infected with it. If you look for rhyme or reason in The Sporting Venus,” you will look in vain. But you will find three excellent performances—by Blanche Sweet, Ronald Colman and Lew Cody; you will find some beautiful photography, and you will find a number of deftly manipulated scenes. “The Shock Punch” HERE'S just one thing the matter with Richard Dix: he’s too damned likable. He is all three Rover Boys rolled into one, and his exce: human charm gets on the nerves. This quality of sweetness has oppressed Mr. Dix's work only since he became a star; I have seen him in pictures (notably “The Sin Flood”) which gave him a SELLING TALK College President (to noted benefactor): VEN OUR DIPLOMAS ARE MADE OF THE SKIN FROM FOR THIS INSTITUTION—WHY, YES, SIR, THE BEST IS NONF TOO GooD CONTENTED SHEEP. THE SILENT chance to demonstrate a few normal frailties, and it seemed to me that he did it extremely well. In “The Shock Punch,” however, he is too irresistible to live—and when he engaged in mortal combat with the villain on the top level of a skeleton building, I for one hoped that he would slip. “The Shock Punch” has the makings of a good melodrama, but it has been developed with scant skill. It uses up its thrills too early in the story, so that there is no kick left at the finish. When you've seen one steel girder, you've seen them all. “Up the Ladder” ASIDE from a fairly effective per- formance by Virginia Valli, there absolutely nothing to recommend in p the Ladder.” It is a dull, artless story about a too-successful husband and his long-suffering wife, with most of the long-suffering contributed by the audience. Hope 'HIS is a bad season of the year in the movies (I keep that line stand- ing in type and use it every summer), but there are at least two pictures in prospect which should alleviate the famine. One of them is “Don Q., Son of Zorro,” with Douglas Fairbanks, and the other is Charlie tuples “The Gold Rush.” I may be old and hard and surfeited with film “entertainment,” but one of those red-headed, freckle-faced Nor- man Rockwell urchins at his first circus will have nothing on me when “The Gold Rush” comes to town. R. E. Sherwood. (Recent Developments will be found on page 35.) comicbooks.com