New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1918-12-29
BY Virginia Tracy

swhy DO people want to play what
new don't want TO play ." we medi
.,,,s sloud to Our Family. Il can UNI
srstaud statue wanting to be q
/ team engine. but I can't see why it
4 axes the steam-engine job without
H .erping a bit more lively than it did
S statue"
Arc You really talking about any
ing" inquired Our Family.
h We were talking, Of course, about a
sublc bill we had seen the night be-
ire; about Bessie Love and how she
Sd started 70 play and had not played
4 set Harte's The Judgment of Boil
d IS Plain'-alias Sue" in stageland;
q slmland alias THE Dawn of Under
4 anding" about why Nine. Petrovs
/ I'D wanted TO play Patience Spar
\ .rk" and called her "The Panther
/ Woman"
five We're never among the throng-
B : readers who held Patience Spar
4 avk" almost biblically to their
\ ,ssoms. san less could we deny that
s book breathed hard with its own
silent life; the struggles of Patience
4 light her way clean from the slough
environment still frown upon us
IN such roughness of power that
sen at this date we seem to see Susan
& nnox popping back upon them cal
h Gus eyes. But we could not imagine
81 Inc. Petrova wishing 10 be rough.
81 lid We said TO ourselves that if, in
b he pursuit of artistic opportunity, she
b I'd achieved that wish it was a noble
4 ed We realized that in Mrs. Ather-
B 9l's book there was still novel com
h nation of brutality and picturesque
n salism that would not only photo
4 saph we'll but give opportunities for
d -gously charged acting. But how
81 'out the last moment rescue from the
4 ectrie chair by a dasher-up with
4 ardon This we feared would rouse
b tighter unless audiences were so cal
+ FUSED to it. at this stage Of its game
s pictures, that they might merely
b sep Had Nine Petrova, for the
ike of all the rest, decided to risk
S death-chair bromide? Or could
Re possibly cut it out?
Neither. 1t was for the sake of the
chair bromide that the picture
ID been made What had been cut
y was all the rest.
s. Whether in dearth of feminine
I r-parts, whether in search for
more realistic conditions than those
] 7th which she has become identified,
whatever Nine Petrova desired Of Pa
'ience Sparhawk she had never desired
70 express her Why hadn't THE
j Anther Woman warned us? A steam
b CINE, as we have delicately suggest
b d. hut why a panther? Nobody ever
81 'ed more anxious to get out of the
81 ingle than Patience or was less snu-
81 us about trampling her way forth.
n rell, Nine Petrova had gained her
N eputation in sinuous parts, in the
81 ays when long trains and spangled
IS lancess dresses were still correct
& aough TO make parlor panthers posi-
* De- All, + short skirts had come in
b lttle earlier, should we ever have
% 'aa yamps p Patience herself, on her
n Isl appearance in the film, wore large,
81 vlmsy shoes in order to show us that,
& sa slum-dweller, she meant business,
T, WV she wore also very long and expen-
s. we corsets III order to make her plain
3 ''nt dress set well; the plain print
4 IS turned in two buttons at the neck
show us that she was poor, but it
'l never been near a sink nor scrub
ALI and as for the terrible vital i'm
uses of Patience and her soul-torn
"aggIes after sclf-improvement, there
'fe indeed, a couple of flashes in
'a'ch Improvement went through such
menuous adventure as to borrow
'''S from an old gentleman who lived
very handsome house, also, under
'eat provocation; once, Patience
'aged her stepmother into a chair