New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1919-02-02
Movie HerOineS To
Suit All Tastes
By Virginia Tracy

remembered our accusation that movie
heroines pined to be too sweetly sym
pathetic.
But we tod ourselves, "You know
we'll enough that the Wild Cat will
be only some cute kitten, splitting.
That since the wave of morality that
has followed the war Theda Bara's
She Devil will reform and die or, at
any rate, will die with the same effect
of sanity reproof as if she had re-
formed (strange what righteousness
people do achieve by dyngD And that
Geraldine Farrar in Willard Mack's
He'll Cat will be sort of Bret Harte
Katherine to some mining camp Pc
truchio whom she will score off
with wild comedy RACES for four reels
and carry out of a burning house in
the fifth" Nevertheless, hoping to
find in these comparatively yelled at
tacks upon popular sympathy some gen
cral philosophy of how the movies
think ii can be got we started forth.
We no longer take the Wild Cat for
a splitting kitten. AS an apache, rob
bling an artists studio by night, she
garrottes him with intent to kill; with
a sister apache who has talked about
her" she fights a duel with knives and
carves her opponent into shreds, she
herself streaming with blood from
head, face, bosom and dripping fingers,
but fortunately not in the least weak
ened by the loss of it, and later, after
she has become virtuous, she lures Ger
man after German to her bedroom, gar
rottes each in turn and throws the
corpse out of the window. More than
this could scarcely be asked for by
the most ardent admirer Of unsympa-
thetic heroinesl But remember that
conversion to virtue to which we re-
Gently, and perhaps too lightly, re-
ferred 1t has been effected by the
sight of a statuette of Joan of Arc in
the studio the Wild Cat went to rob
though indeed we SHOULD have sup
posed that the stree-s of Paris and
its shop windows might even earlier
have provided her with ikenesses of
heroine not entirely ignored in France
and when she has garretted suffi
cient number of Germans to feel that
she has filled out Joan's pattern she
escapes from the captured chateau
where she has been nursing wounded
soldiers and fees back to Paris in a
lowing and transparent garment, a
sort of mundane kimono crossed with
the anticipation of heavenly robe.
In this she seeks out her apaches,
rouses them to patriotism and march
ing through the streets singing '"ihe
Marseillaise," all heaving bosom and
auttering film of robe, she leads them
TO enlist Amen
The He'll Cats title, on the other
hand is a mere misnomer-much as If
enc had story about, say, vessel
carrying relief to, some land of famine
and thought people might take d
greater fancy to it if it were called
The Ghost Ship" At least no more
relevant reason presents itself as tc
why Willard Mack should have stamped
with comedy brand his picturesque
tragedy.
The He'll Cat is so good picture anc
leaves us so touched and shaken that
when it is over we are puzzled 10 know
why it is not better still. 1t start.
with one of the best Of picture condi
tions-the war between the southwest
ernssheep rangers and cattle rangers; (
war that intrigues whole countryside
and calls into the picture grea
stretches of noble and lonely country
with the fierce little war creeping an,
conspiring and killing and fleeing ami
the vastness of toweting mountain ant
light-bathed plain, SO that the stor.
grows up out of the landscape like al
expression OF the life that landscap
rnoulds-to our mind the best Of NOV
ing picture soils. The story settle
round the Spanish sheep ranger and hi
daughter and the young sheriff t
whom she is engaged in opposition t
the cattleranger, who wishes the NOR
eagerly to ruin the father because tn
daughter is out of his reach. Havin
plenty of movie precedent he manage
to burn the ranch house, murder tn
father and carry off the girl, and whe
ne begins the regulation movie attac
upon her we suppose the picture to b
nearly over, because now is the tim
for the coming Of the sheriff And ir
stead we are face to face with tn
pictures distinctive stroke; the sheri
does not come.
When we see the girl again we ha,
passed out of the world of last~minu'
rescucs and of villains covering b.
fore the retorts Of virtue into the worl
which recognizes that neither virtu
nor Spanish pride, nor even the pri
icge Of being the heroine can save yc
from the strength than is strong,
than yours. The scenes that folio
ere all scenes Of the girls readjus
mcnt to lifes from utterly sic
smashed misery through seif-recovel
and self-possession TO the vengean