New-York tribune., 1919-06-08
By Virginia Tracy

gv popular demand Nazimova and
@The Red Lantern" had return date
a. the Rivoli last week; fact, we are
informed, without precedent. Also
fact which makes walk again that
hoary ghost OF what the public wants.
Being q part of it. we readily under
stand its wanting the sensation that
the management is doing it very well;
we all like to feel that we have got
lot for our money, and this ingenious
nassion. The Red Lantern" amply
. eratifes; in fact, if nothing were
necessary for happiness but sense of
surfeit The Red Lantern" would float
us in ecstasy. On the other hand, those
who are refreshed and rejoiced by any
thing so quantity, so authentically de-
lphtful as the opening of the picture
wonder what nourishment the rest of
us find in the empty and senseless
hubbub OF It's close.
For the earlier reels are so good
that we thought we had found in them
the rainbow's end The street in Pc
king; the cobbler, Mahless; the slip of
q girl who stops to have her shoe
mended, the poor home to which she
goes and all the subsequent scenes of
native living are enchantingly fresh;
We are not disenchanted even when
one-haf OF Mahlee turns out to be of
Hood lNiOOIf
phrase. which always makes us think
of leprosy and shudder, though, in
deed, we have come to such q pass with
East-Wesr and West-East pictures this
winte:- that we would give anything to
see one with heroine who was neither
South West nor yet Nor Nor-East, but
had owned two parents from the same
point OF the compass, even if her blood
turned out to be only red
However. as half-caste, Mahlee has
at least never had her feet bound and
we soon are diverted by the old Chi
nese grandmother who, in her bed on
top Of the stove, lies longing for death
and yet discovers through some dark
magic that, though the owl has called
three times, death will not accept the
grandmother Of q girl with big feet. A
qant horror begins to fascnate US,
the picture becomes possessed by an
eerle and witching spirit, as simple
and irresistible as folklore; the owl
calls, the lamp burns low, a sort Of
Halloween thrill creeps up the spine
Of the spectator, and when the ter
rlble old woman at length demands that
the girl cut off her feet, there is moth
ing incredible about it-even the girls
appalled, consent falls into place like
the right rhyme. In our rich igno-
rance Of any century but this and every
country but our own-an ignorance
shared, we hope, by none of our
readers-we cannot vouch for all this
being genuine Pekingese," but it
vouches for itself; genuineness speaks
out OF It as out oi an old border bal
lad the fanaticism and superstition.
the homeliness and simpleness min
eled with the fantastic, the fine dig
nlty Of the most ordinary actions, such
as the washing OF dish, each activity
having its own place in a long estab-
Nshed civilization, these are moulded
by Nine. Nazimova's economy and sim
plielty OF motion and by photography
almost as creative as Tourneur's into
an expressiveness which Capellani has
made sincere and typical, like a legend,
like the very face Of a people. This,
now, is what we call direction.
But-isn't it Edgar selwyn who says
that the road 10 hell is paved with good
hrst acts. From this time on there is
not sincerity enough for one more paw
ing stone. Il is as though the work Of
one man stopped and another began.
Well, when we tell you that the half
white girl, fainting from a slash across
her ankles, Is found by handsome all
white youth from the mission, then,
surely, we need tell you no more. You
know already that Mahlee is taken to
the mission, that she becomes it's ia