New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1919-09-28
"A Week Rich i'm Lost Picture
Possibilities; Three Films
That Have Not Seized
Their Opportunities
BY Virginia Tracy

By Virginia Tracy
! Through what cause do 80 many
themes go astray on their way to the
screen? We snatched at the first
three spoiled ideas passing on the
weeks current, looked for any relation
between causes with microscope and
found not a germ. We should, mono the
less, like to pass on our riddle with
what evidence we have.
The guilt Of spelling "Upstairs"
could, of course, be better placed If we
knew what the story was like before
the screen got hold of it. A better
idea, or one more suited to Mabel
Normand, never made us smile with
anticipation. A little scrub-girl in the
nethermost basement Of q great hotel
dreams always Of "Upstairs." Her at
tainment to that celestial region, her
reaction to it and its to her, the diff
ference between dreams and reality,
embodied as absurdly, as touchingly,
even as farcicaly as you please-there
seemed a harvest for Miss Normanls
cleaning! But by what incidents is
about town makes a bet that he can
snare the little scrub-girps fancy, dis
guises himself as bell-boy, and, in
order that he may take her upstairs,
steals her dress from an hciress who
has eloped with chauffeur. Follow
many horseplay complications of the
chase by that novel character the
angry father, after the chauffeur and
the heiress-the heiress minus her
dress.
1t seems to have occurred to nobody
that the young man about town could
simply have bought his scrub-g girl
dress and that then the complications
might have centred about her instead
of about the heiress. She has one truly
comic incident, the means by which she
possesses herself of a pair of proper
pumps. Otherwise confusion, dulnes5,
a sense of baffled humor, a dearth of
fancy. of satire or tenderness or even
high spirits, perfect theme swinging
as uselcssly in the air as a broken
chandelier, and deere Mabel'-oh, if
ever there was a dere!-wandering be-
meath it in a darkness where only the
ness of her own pathos shows us that
she is looking for comedy and not
finding it.
Here then, clearly. the blame lay in
a lack Of incidents suitable to the idea,
whether it was the author or the
director who failed to supply them.
But what are we to say OF so different
a business as David G. Fischer's pro
duction Of "Where Bonds Are Loosed"?
"Where Bonds Are Loosed" Full of
Violence
We should like immensely TO know
whatever prompted Mr.. Fischer to
make the picture. Even had he sue
ceeded perfectly in his attempt, what
sublime faith he had in the publics
energetic curiosity as TO human nature,
in its hard and vigilant acceptance of
brute fact, Like other people. we had
reaG the book and, on recovering from
being enormously snubbed by it, had
paitly admired. partly denied this story
Of neglected government hospitals for
natives on hideous bare islands OFT
Africa, OF the young scientific genius
seducea from his career by trained
nurse whose "vitality,' after she has
get him murdered by sort of human
gorilla whom he has fought on her &C
count, is strong enough to save her
from the same fate by carr ing hcr
straight across his dead body into the
arns OF the gorilla and making out for
herself in that embrace, some kind of
natural" lifc-in those islands wncre
bonds are loosed
I'ut we never denied the dramatic
shock of it. the singleness and stag
geriurness OF it's effect, and we said to
orr family, as we left home to see it.
that in another kind of world it might
have made some picture! No medium
could bc so perfect for the setting or
The story. But. Of course, we were not
ingenious enough to suppose that any
sort Of faith would be kept with the
author The nurse said our wisdom,
VIII have become an ingenue. seduccd
by the scientist and reformed by the
trusting love of the gorilla, who Will
have turned into sweet simple, faith
full. rustic soul; or else the gorilla will
stay as he is and when he attacks the
nurse the scientist Will XIII him instead
Of his killing the scientist. and ship
will appear on the horizon to take weary
virtue home But nothing Of the kind
occurred.
If this were q world in which honor
able intentions got their due, "Whcre
Bonds Are Loosed" would be the best
picture ever made. Save for the CEN
sors single sop no such scrupulous,
such religious good faith was ever kept
with any author And what, alas, is the
result? The picture is tame and dreary
instead of sombre and savage rs the
book is, and literally translated though
it be, incident by incident, not an in
tention falsiied. or an emotion juggled
80 that We sat there stupetied ut oul
lack of excitement or oven of triumph
ant admiration, it affected US more like
az authentic catalogue of violent &C
tlons than like that tumultuous and
II we may permit ourselves so prim g
word sickoning deluge Of authentic
violence Not even the sun and the heat
got over; the very loneliness is told
not LAID upon US. Indicated they all
are; no Intelligence of them is lacking
no attentive PAINS are spared, but