New-York tribune., 1919-03-23

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Happy Valley, Griffith thenceforth re-
members about young John only that,
eventually, he must come back with
money. "Well-quickest way for lots
of money? Invent something. Some
thing not too grandiose in tone for
picture of Happy Valley? Mechanical
swimming frog-good enough" Young
John is gone seven years, and in this
time he is never shown to us doing
anything whatever but kneeling over
tub, impassionedly testing his frog.
Once he comes home and thrusts him
self by force under his producers eye
he Is picked up again and treated ten
derly, as no saint, but a quite justi-
fably cocky youth, bursting with con-
ceit and ripe to dazzle. All the same,
we have had chill and are to feel
worse one.
We have no quarrel with the circum-
stances by which the father seeks to
steal the wallet which he does not
know is his sons, nor because, in the
struggle in the dark, the father strikes
the son mortal blow. So far breath
taking truth and misery! But the
trashy and senseless contrivance by
which the son is saved puts out our
fire at splash, nor can we, on
hearth where our confidence has been
so warm, forgive the icy insult. After
so much truth the most bromidic of
contrivances would have been better
than false one; it is as if somebody
had reminded Griffith and he had re-
piled, "Punch? Oh, yes, so they do
want one! Hit 'em with this"
Is it coincidence that "The Greatest
Thing in Life" breaks in two in much
the same way as does "A Romance of
Happy Valley? The break, indeed, is
not SO plain, nor is it this time that
the story is left to 60 wild, but that it
turns into II different story from that
with which we started out, SO that
presently we find ourselves witnessing
an admirable, conventional picture Of
war heroism instead Of the unconyen-
tional. the incompatible picture of war
adjustment which the premises prom
ised. We do not mean to slight the
fine scenes Of battle-.-or Of smokc!-
nor the backbone they gain from the
strong lack Of weak abuse with which
their titles march them on. Tho Ger
mans are called Germans, nothing else;
there IL not rape nor III atrocity, nor
even villain. and tho effect is extraor-
dinary--the Germans come on and
sweep over and destroy the little town
quite. we might say, quietly, like some
great machine calmly grinding as it
goes the humanity in it's path. And
the soul rises against it in a colder
hatred than against million devils
/ Nevertheless--- ~o
Surely no need to name the titles
greatest thing" But we begin with a
young aristocrat so i'll at case with
life as to be practically disassociated
from it whom enforced association with
low private soldiers smashes into the
common mud, only that from the COM
mond mud it may remodel a perfectly
functioning human being, glad of the
drink which negro soldier offers from
his water bottle, glad to console that
negro--dying of wounds and fever in
the shell hole where they hide and
screaming dcliriously for his mother
with the kiss which the negro thinks
it is his mother gives him. SO we
know that the love Griffith refers to in
his title is the love of human kind, and
when he pretends to us that all he re-
fers to is the love of lovers, we know
he has simply deserted in action on the
field of battle.
Not Intentionally, we suppose. His
is most comprehensive mind, and
desiring, probably, to weave in more
kinds OF love than one, he has made
his heroine little girl looking for the
Perfect Lover. And the minute he
begins to think about her the story Of
democratizing an aristocrat goes
straight out of his head and he de-
votes himself to her story; so that
between the hero as aristocrat and
the humanitarian in the shell hole we
have absolutely only one single scene
OF development. Is that why, even
to its creator, the shell hole seems a
little sudden and he feels called upon
to explain such movement by inter
rupting it with fade-ins of the negro
dreaming in his mother, as if there
we're danger we might think the hero
only kissed him out of carelessness?
This is the reverse side of that orig
inal will for which we thanked heaven
in the beginning, and not less now al
the end. If The Tribune didn't have
n programme Of its own on which il
will insist upon others than ourselves
appearing, we could gladly discourse
for few columns about the heroine,
love search; we do not know how il
could have been done with lovelier
juster, funnier sense of adolescen
girlhood; and although we think tn,
democratic story of deeper and
prouder kind than hers we should b.
glad to get either developed truly fo
Itself. Fully driven home either |
plenty for any programme picture. AM
supeffieally skipped over the two to
gether are not enough. Yet whe bu
Griffith Is trying to do such thing
at all7 Who else sees with so fresl
an eaeeffSss buf dueef W6ftd ar cara