New-York tribune., 1919-07-13

Hall Game s "W0n1un''
No Mn1'tyred Saint

at least something at the various jobs
she lost after she reached England,
we do not understand how, in the
space of two months she is brought to
such pass that she cannot get medi-
cine for her sick child. Mary, how
ever, knows her business as martyr
better than we do. To that pass she
does come, and seeing out of her win
dow at night women stopping men on
the street she realizes at once that
there lies the final step for sanity
martyr and out she goes. By a fortu-
hate, if remarkable, chance the first
man she speaks to is the explorer, who
at first looks a little Jared, but who
has enough dramatic instinct to realize
that this is what Mary is to be
brought to by the wickedness of the
villain and the marriage laws, before
the picture can end. Happily, he has
loads of money-none Of which it had
occurred to him to settle on Mary be-
fore he went to the North Pole, no.
toriously a risky trip-and as Mary
has her divorce ready they are mar
ried and live happily and in the midst
of luxury ever after, although we
can't help thinking the explorer must
feel a little nervous every time he
has to leave home. If the first time
he went away he returned to find
Mary driven to marrying a libertine,
and the second time, he returned to
find her driven to streetwalking, it
seems as if he might we'll wonder what
his next absence might drive her to.
But, Of course, in marrying profess
sional saint and martyr he must have
been prepared to take some risks.
Only, we should be glad to have any
one show US. what martyrdom Mary
suffered through anything but not hav-
ing enough money. And we fail to see
how this lack was the fault either of
the marriage laws or of the villain
AS firm, strong minded modern
woman who knew what she wanted and
went after it and got it, we are ready
enough to applaud the pictures Scotch
Mary McNeill, but as the sympathy
catcher for which she is designed she
somehow proves not a circumstance to
the books unpretentious little Irish
Mary O'Neill, who, as readers of the
foregoing synopsis may be interested
to hear, never threw ther wedding ring
out of the window, never denied that
she stood in mortal sin, never got a
divorce and never married the ex-
plorer
Hall Caine, his book being a fe-and-
death attack upon indissoluble mar
riage. first makes his heroine Roman
Catholic and then doubly binds her
with the marriage laws of England
Ihe picture, eager for the publicity be-
longing to book which is a life-and-
death attack upon anything, is equally
eager not to attack anybody; it neatly
cuts out any sense in Mary's martyr
dom by cutting out her religion and
then by taking only one faint slap at
the English marriage laws, rightly
Judging these to be of rather remote
interest to a public which has re-
joiced all winter in Cecil De Miles
plcture-series of blythe adventures in
divorce. But, though it is thing man.
ayers never will believe, you cannot
eat your cake and keep it; you cannot
make your heroine a sympathy catcher
through the miseries of indssoluble
marriage and yet hand her her divorce
on, so to speak, her wedding night
Hugh Ford has had this nonsense
beautifully produced and photographed !;
Beulah Dix's scenario contrives a tech
nical triumph of mere progression
which urges on your otherwise un-
founded interest and the staggering
varieties of place-Scotland and India
and the North Pole and the London
slums-instead of jarring and halting
the illusion, as they too often do, are
so managed as to encourage, quicken
and sustain it-this, Of course, being
really an essential beauty Of moving
picture movement. AS for the acting
we used to think that Theodore Rob-
erts had made such admirable crutches
of his mannerisms that he would never
be able to take another step without
them, but observe the magnifcence of
his stride now he has thrown them
all away! Poor Jack Holt has al
ways to play villains because he once
played German. But certainly he
plays them exceedingly we'll, and why
should we pity him when we see Mil
ton Sills weighted down with the dead
corpse of a hero and doing as we'll as
possible with nothing whatever to do !
Katherine Macdonald puzzles US as to
how she escapes registering JOY every
time she looks in the mirror, but she
imposes Mary's martyrdom upon us
with mournful loveliness which gives
some arrestive hints of better things
Ne,o Manager for Strand
Moe Mark, president of the Mark
Strand Theatre Company, has appoint
ed Jack Eaton managing director of