New-York tribune., 1919-01-19
More Than Plot TO
Make o. Picture

as a small Moses, he leads his people
to her house just before the American,
by means of tunnel he has been con
structng all the way from the French
trenches under the German trenches, is
about to blow up the German ammuni-
ton chamber, the explosion to be the
signal for an Allied surprise attack.
L. is through this tunnel, with every
circumstance of horrid danger, that the
children finally reach the French lines,
but before that happy issue a whole
army OF ogres pours in pursuit through
the German end and the American sup
poses-ying behind some sand bags
with his gun-that he has to hold them
back all by himself Not so. Who
comes to his assistance? The little boy
and his dog return as a rear guard to
that Belgian people, which is their re
sponsbility, and the little boy lies
there in sweat and mud and blood firing
and firing, holding the fort with his
dog and his Amercan-happy little
boy, Then when court martial re
luctantly decides that the American
who preferred the children to the ex-
plosion and the Allied attack must be
punished, this fortunate child has
only to run in upon his dear friend
King Albert and lead him by the hand
to the court-martial, whore the king
asking for acquittal, the American is
saved.
Well. let me confess that fear It
happened not so. When the little boy
grows up he will know that the good
king never came into his backyard,
that it is not a world in which a small
boy is apt to save his helpless people.
nor his little lame dog to return from
the fray carrying a German helmet in
its teeth But in the meantime he has
not so much told US something valu-
able as shown us something valuable
the true business Of little motion pict
ure boys"
"For instance %
"The dreadful simplicity with which
the children rise and follow him. They
so not only without fear Of the great
night world outside but without giving
evidence of any hope. They have been
made into little automata and the per
feet machinery keeps on working per
fectly only now in how different di-
rection. The automata waste neither
time, question nor preparation in !
simply leaving behind them that de-
tested place. Some genius having real
lied them thus, in their blind intensity
and dumb, desperate obedience, shows
us the white road through the night,
then the dark village streets and al
ways pouring along them, unresting
unhurrying, the little army OF the disn-
herited of the suppressed and almost
obiterated, an army of tense shadows
ON an old room, brown black but fire
tinged and candle-lghted, the little
boys mother and the American are
saying goodby In their unimportant,
grown-up way they ave dreadfully un-
happy; then suddenly they see the
queer little old window-panes fill with
shadowy faces that seem formed out
Of the night-gray- black shadows this
time. smoke gray, fading to lavender
and blue as of horde of small spirits
freezing to death outside the warm
brown room. The crowding there of
those shut-out faces and the something
vaguely reproachful in their silent
clamor is most Justly visible and not
narrative stroke and is kept within
the bounds of the realst unrealitv by
the mysterious lighting and the sense
Of midnight and magic in that sudden
visitation"
Every photographer his own best
dramatist.' grinned the Permanent
Crouch, with understanding and indul-
gcnce.
"lf you like Certainly it is the soft.
persuasive, undidactic medium that
quietly works into your very bones the
wonder how any human creatures had
any business with business Of their own
while those children were homeless
The children themselves, when they
throng into the room, offer neither ex-
planation nor entreaty; terrible. re-
'~H~'NN' iANN4N NitHtuitS, JucJ simply
fasten theiy eyes upon the American
in authority and at his decision the
meek, determined regiment sets of
again unQuestioningly, and disappears
into the bowels Of the earth 1t is a
very strange moment when they do at
last emerge into the trenches through
the darkness; the trenches that are
iilled with men nervous as ovcrchcckcd
horses for the signal to attack that
does not come. The children swarm
up around them as if they them
selves were weeds springing out
Of the earth, as if the earth itself had
risen; the stupcfication Of the soldiers
affects them not at all and they move
on into the French lines with the obsti-
nate, practical realism Of perfect con
eentration still leaving to others all
details and explanation; it is enough
for them that they arc there. And at
last those men, armed to fight the
enemy Of Relgium, expecting like
enough to die within the hour in that