New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1918-12-29
ON THE TRAIL OF THE MOTION PICTURE
Stars Who Try to Jump
Out Of Their O,un Orbits

Wuch harder than was quite nice.
otherwise she remained MARTYR as
meek as her name, led unrcsistinr bv
the hand Of fate toward the near
tragedy Of the climax. To attain this
the scenario scuttled through the story
not so much by leaps and bounds as
heavy thuds, as of plot failing from
landing 10 landing and missing the in
tervenlng steps. SO as to leave plenty
OF time for close-ups of the electric
chair, of how it is worked, Of the re-
porters, the guards, the last night
And when we came to that last night
the most that Nine Petrova contrib
uted to it, emotionally. and to the cleo
trio chair, was to put her hand to her
throat, as if She had heard somewhere
of people being hanged.
Now. YOU may like Nine. Petrovas
acting or not, but there is no doubt OF
her having brought to it a very dctin
lite equipment. She has learned how
to utilize a fine presence she has
authority and repose. she has mas
tered those laws Of pauses and glanccs
and by-play which suggest controlled
emotion and has regarded with intelli-
gence those dramatic effects which she
admlres. studying OF what they are
composed and how to bring them off
IN other words, she has been at the
pains to learn her business. But it is
TO her business entirely of exteriorS.
OF surfaces and effects and "situa.
tons Yet the very situations she
summons for their violence she does
not play. Once people have begun
stTangling each other or any such
PANTHER women tricks it is no place
for lady who likes to be quietly i'm
presslve. and, if put to it, she would
rather faint and get it over than go
through so horrid an orgy as dsar-
rangemeNt. Any such disarrangement.
indeed, as sometimes tears Mae Marsh's
face TO pieces and lets the soul scream
out IN awful protest probably outlaws
itself with Nine. Petrova less on ac-
count of its sudden soaring ugliness
than because there is in her soul no
inclination TO scream
Now we are for a screamlcss life
as much as anybody, but it is this fail
rre 70 grapple subjectively with
crisis which makes Nine Petrova's
work the exact opposite of what we
mean by motion picture acting. She
IS an architect whose house has been
carefully and precisely calculated. but
imagination has never entered it: she
shows us the vestibule-to our mind
rather an oldfashioned but very hand
some vostibule, with the suit Of armor
and the tapestries hung at exactly the
right angle to catch the eye-but what
Is going on in the private rooms she
never shows US And there is no med
ium in the world more intimate, more
essentially intimate, than motion pict-
ure acting; in the last analysis, it is
that or nothing. SO we turned to
Bessie Love
Here is a little person who responds
to the varying moods of a part ex-
actly as field Of young wheat re-
spends to the airs that pass over it.
These moods come and go in her OK
prcssiveness as unobtrusivey and as
without definite boundary line or mark
of transit as shadow and shine come
and go through daylight, and it is this
lovely softncss and lightncss which
melt from variation to another as sig
niticantly and expressively as music it.
self which marks her out as a motion
picture actress. OF course she can
know very little as vet except girl
hood, but that, astonishingly enough,
she knows as we'll as if she were fifty
years old. She is able to see it as
clearly as If she were looking back
upon it from a height; of childhood she
has forgotten nothing ana she has not
adventured one step into youth with
out learning from every foot Of its gar
den all that grows there and being able
to gather it for the purposes Of her
wanted to play Bret Harte's Sue. But
what was the reason that she never did
play it?
"Well, what wasp kindly asked Our
Family, supposing we had paused for
encouragement
"I'm afraid we replied with en-
venomed bitterness, ppm just getting
ghmmer why. But it's baleful
eleaml Let's wait a week or SO and
sec if it brightens,"