New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1919-03-02
'sFuIse Faces Does Not
Suffer From Anaen1ia
BY Virginia Tracy

When Mt 1ncc's long awaited produc-
ton of "Falso Faces" with Henry Il.
Walthall ns the Lone Wolf. our com
panion caught ~ grinning she said
euucichingsy that the story had points
we didn't even grasp.
We make no doubt Of it, It IA our
miBhnp never to have rcnd "tnlsc
tacea,' but when long book Of action
IL tclescopcd into nm hour and Il quar-
ter OF picture. with surely no angle
action omitted. amazing things must
happen to tho perspective, and doubt
less wa mipsod many ponta as they
few nart us, cnnnoning into each other
with no pause for persuasive approach
or plausible Introduction.
Hut what cared the 30 much wiser
audience for our small discord? And
whore wcre those who say war stun
and particularly spy etuH. s defunct7
Moat movie spectators. until struck
into momcntary silence by the main
murder, behave M If they had come TO
the theatre because they had powhcre
y
house sat nhsorhed and hushed, only
Mt each new thrill bursting into Misses
into-rarcst of all things for movie
hction--full rounds of passionate ap-
plause, sometimes uttering that savage,
Joyous yelp as the chase caught the
villains heel. of those who had put
their money on tho Lone Wolf in ear
nest. We have left far better pictures
tagged and fretted; we burst cheerfully
from False Faces" good tempered
from merely sitting among so many
people who were having such a good
time.
And, indeed, False Faces" begins in
a tone of as keen romantic integrity as
if it were Stevenson transferred to the
screen intact. What we see is No
Mans Land by night; mist developing
to sleety rain; cross-fring. 1t is a
universe apparently isolated in space
space that is gray-blue, blue black,
ink black, mist hrouded, silver-shat-
tered, red lurking in the silver. The
sodden, terrible, fercely illumined
night seizes us at once into it's own
drama, which it plays with equal fear
fulness Of light or darkness among
the dim bulks of men and mud and
corpses and things surely belched up
by the pit in disgust at its own mon
strosities. If we somewhat staCger I'M
der the heavy bombast of the titles,
no mattcr For now, through the sea
of slime, f1attening itself before the
lights and pressing forward as drag
gingly as crushed snake through
pools of darkness, some thing moves
toward us
At first only one Of those primeval
monstrosities, crawling, it presently
suggests an animal, then a human an
imal, shuddering with an exhaustion so
abject that We wonder why it does not
lie still and die, till it is SO close upon
us that, even as it ducks from a flash,
the human animal shows us the face
Of man, masked to the eyes in freez-
ing slush, and in the eyes an inex-
haustible, unquenchable fire. The
glance, the ATTITUDE, the cncOrnpaSSlnP
mould OF earth and night achieve for
one memorable moment that complete
accord where realism and romance are
altogether one, for which the longing
runs through human desire as vital as
pulse beat. And If you happen to
care more about that kind of dramatic
expression than simply anything else
in the world, you sit tight-huddlcd and
mute, but with kind Of prayer run
ming in your blood, "Oh let them keep
II upl"
Well, and then7 When the Lone
Wolf tumbles at last into tho French
trenches and the soldiers spring to deal
with the DESERVING Boche, what does
the Lone Wolf. leaning thcre against
the trench wall, begged in filth. his
legs shaking under him, his jaw sag
ging and then swapping In little
witches like mad dogs, and the rain
smearing down his mud-stained, clay
stiff face into his open mouth--what
does no find strength to say? He finds
strength TO say, ~ am no German! !