New-York tribune., 1919-09-21
Eugene O'Brien Makes Real
Ascent Into Stard0m

that lowers with so frozen and yet so
burning torment from that first
right-dark. storm -swep. street.
Clothed in Vivid Photographs
Ralph lnce begins his picture as if
1T were some gloriticd mystery story.
He knows the drama of lighted windows
in the rain. of storm drops bouncing
from the pavement like malevolent
little worlds, of the mockery in the
CLEAN OF street lamp on that door
way where Lazar shelters for mo-
ment and of the opening of that cold,
wet hand with its frayed sleeve to
disclose all the fire and the glory of
the great Jewel in the ring which this
shlverlng scarecrOw has been carving
like a splendid secret through the
nlght. Struck with an interest incom-
parap!y moro vlvd.and intriguing than
we had expected, we soon see that to
Mr.. lnce spiritual struggle is a thing
as glowing and resoundng as the siege
OF Troy, and the artist fighting the
world is to him as gallantly exciting
as Jack the Giant Killer. He proclaims
thls by the enormous reliance on sheer
beauty which he displays so unhes-
tatrgly and with such an actual en-
chantment Of success.
His picture walks in beoutv. il ,s
made OF it; for suggestion. interprota
tlon, emotional quality, you might al
most say he has used nothing else.
Inc light that touches the lovemaking
amid those country reads, those ponds
and hedges, and spring woodlands with
such lAeffable and crystalline youth
speaks as differently as words from,
the mallgn fireshine OF that masked
ball which is not so much like flesh
and blood ball as like that where
through the windows Poe could see
wild forms that moved Enthusiastically to
tographer have brushed everything
with such glows and tones OF mellowed
color that light cannot fall on a board
without making it eloquent and lovely,
so that the scenes slip past us in a
sheen and gliMmer of radiance which
remains more or less the radiance Of a
dream and from which we awake with
start to find the picture vanished.
An Impression Varied but Whole
This may be called q merely tech
nical adventure, but to us it has a
truer realism than the most careful
collection of realistic details. What it
does is to present the quagmires that
ensnare Lazar veiled in the glamour in
which they appeared to him and with
out which they never could have shared
him. BY another novelty of technique
the action, launched from Lazar's
point OF view and confined to his knowl-
edge OF its sequence. attains that pict-
ue form which the artstically elect
are always reproaching pictures with
not haNin2-pure narrative.
.l.- Il
narrative always or be inclined some
narrative is in this case wonderfully
effective. All the huddle and litter OF
detail, of incident to amplify incident,
being gone, the continuity runs swift
and llmDid like tune, and though, as
LaZar tells his story in ever varying
and advancing pictures, there seems as
much changing motion as in the waves
Of the sea, yet when we look back
we look back as on the waves of the
sea, upon an impression as single as
fable.
O'Brien Shines Brightly as New Star
This impression is that Of a man of
genius who has gone through what, in
the freedom Of modern language, it
seems a little weak and cosey to call
he'll and brought his genius out alive.
Our interest then lies in our conviction
that this genius is O. pretty big thing,
and when all is said we think it must
he Mr.. O'Briens acting that convinces
US. We are not now speaking Of the
charm with which he invests the char
acter easily enough, nor of the love
scenes which range all the way from
the fever of that one where the censor
was so suddenly invited in to the young
reverence with which he treats the girl
has lost He iniects the part with the
fullest sensibility through all the kinds
OF person Lazar became before he be-
came himself. but to our mind his most
original contribution is this ability to
make us accept Laznr's great powers