New-York tribune., 1919-06-15
By Virginia Tracy

for making ISIS we once SET QOWO
some of the things which we hoped
never to see again in any picture. At
their very head marched the hero who
takes another's guilt upon himself y
Melted gelatine appears to US more
commanding, and too much such gela-
tine makes Us lose our appetite for all
heroes except Charlie Chaplin; we so
stand in the lobby and read our book
till it's over. Yet last week at the
Broadway, before "The Man Who
Turned White" we remained seated
restive but enchained. Not that the
story of "The Man Who Turned White"
is of any power whatever to enforce
submission. But the picture has in it
two properties, either of which is
enough to keep US quiet: it has a des-
ert in it, and it has h. B. Warner in it.
Do other people remember, with any
thing like our maudlin tenderness, their
early movie days? When picture the
stres were little dark caves plastered
over with glsring posters, and we knew
not one company nor actor from an
other, but merely stared and fingered
and longed between the express train
plunging down the abyss and the
steamship afre in midocean, But we
would forsake each or both of these
any time we could get desert. Par
ticularly if it added night sky. Then
cave fell away, and we knew nothing
less than perfect majesty and freedom,
the great horizons, spaces, vigilances
Of the silence through which our
hushed nerves breathed, Here comes
adventure!"
Once, indeed, lion walked out of
the shadows and regarded US face to
lace. There was the true climax for
you Humiliating to feel how little
any mere human could equal it as the
worthy answer to all that space and
stiffness! Difficult not to address it;
Figure royal, yet how approachable,
all-wise, aIl-powerful, benevolent, pro-
tective; oh, to abide in the desert with
thee!" The attempt might, of course,
rave been q mistake. But still, there
did come adventure.
What usually came was some thick
CT, middle-aged sedentary gentleman
with an innocent beer-and-b baseball
lace, who looked as if be had been done
up in the draperies of an Arab in or
der to advertise materials for tents.
So, gradually, we learned that there
would never be an adventure worthy
or the desert and to close our eyes at
the approach of the two-legged. In
The Man Who Turned White" we need
hardly say that this was unnecessary.
But only those with our fond cling
:ng to old movie days can possibly feel
me agitated quaver of the heart with
.aich we realized from the stills in
the lobby of the Broadway that we
were in for a regular old-fashioned
thriller, done up de luxe, Of course, in
modern photography, but still offering
20. our fevered fancy "a spectacular
ght with desert brigands, camel cara
vans, Bedouin daredevil horsemen and
beautiful Oriental dancing girls"
Imagine that ii also threw in the night
SKY! 1t was like a return to the
worlds lost youth and to our picture
innocence. The Sahara mystery, the
night wind swirling scrolls across the
sand, the sand scooped into hollows
and banked high in solid walls of pallor
against which the shadow of Arab, horse
md camel loomed dark in the moon
i'ght, the old and ever newly fascinat-
lng effect Of the caravan against the
skyline, all these worked their perfect
apeil; particularly at the time we
awaited, with touching but fully justi-
led confidence, the coming of Ali Ia
man. the Scourge Of the Desert
And if with the coming Of the story
our confidence was somewhat wabbly let
Us say at once that il proved not so bad
story of it's kind. II is handsomely
produced and coherently put together;
% enjoy it you have only to be sus-
eeptioie TO the notion Of an Anglo
S@xon hero set, as social outcast, in
'Ae midst Of those brigands, camels,
oaredeVils and Oriental dancing girls;
hrill 10 the idea that despite his
ossrd and his beautiful Arabian clothes
as Is really clean, lean, crop he AIDED,
0fonzs-jawed aristocrat, whom it makes
1Dft hearts shudder TO think Of in the
AAk