New-York tribune., 1919-06-22
Rex Beach Strays
On o. Blind Trail

the last Rex Beach production, "The
Brand" Pictures and life and the
weather and the rents and the i'm.
perfoctions of humanity in general-a
fairly heavy load, even for a reviewer
had brought US to "The Brand" in q
somewhat fused and fevered state;
fit, as our crouch relaxed in the thea
tres grateful darkness, only to cast
ourselves upon the movement of the
picture, any picture, till it should
draw US into its own rhythm; not till
then could we attend to its signfi.
cancc. We have very little recollection
OF an intermediate state We do not know
at what period we passed out of the
difficulties of our own life into the
more tolerable and reviving difficulties
of other peoples lives, when it was
that we began to breathe a tonic vigo,
and rigor that changed the whole cir
culation of our mind. We merely found
ourselves living in tnat Alaskan town
and contending, in absolute refresh.
ment, with the cold grip of the Alaskan
made sure that we could lean our
whole weight upon the picture; it was
so sound and solid and knew it's story.
telling business so thoroughly that we
had no fear of it's giving way and let
ting us get that bad fall in the last
reel which last reels are in the habit of
giving us.
In "The Brand" the little vaudeville
actress, adventuring into Alaska with
the cheap skate of lover who deserts
her there in his gold-hunt, marries for
livelihood and protection middle-aged
Alaskan hero, wearies of his boring
kindness, his snowed-up house. the in
cessant struggle with broken finger
nails and frozen grease in the kitchen
she never gets out Of and betrays him
at the first advance Of the returning
lover. In the tumultuous and savage
upshot every member Of the triangle
behaves so badly that you hardly see
what any of them can want with
each other, but they never be-
''"'N o"eoiuC Jul pSIIcCC CTeQenCc,
outside their own natures or
something which we binkingly guess
at in our own natures if trans
ferred to their stressed and vio-
lent circumstance. Their miserable
struggle works itself out against the
epic conditions of snow and storm and
! mountain; conditions so crushing to
them, so magnificent to the comfort
able spectator and moulding the pic
ture and the attention so completely
inside that frozen world. But never
for moment allowed to throw a
romantic light upon the squalid bone
! aching, sordid grubbiness of digging
for living in that ice-bound. iron
! bound land
The picture is moulded with such
strength and continuity that it seems
slowly to loom up out of the yarv
Landscape as great ROCK does, and
as the picture grows the middle-aced
Alaskan grows, too; with the very
able assistance Of Russell Simpson he
develops into a monumental, legend
ary hero, like some cross old eagle
solitary and inscrutable The pas
sing years, the sense of the town
that grows up in the hollow of his
hand, the brute vengeance that, as
dumbly and as potently as a machine
he at last wreaks upon the hero, all
mount into the Incompatible pride
with which he bears his wife and
child back to his own cerie because
he wants them; instead of maunGer-
ing through the commonplace pride
of barring them out because the con-
ventional conception is that he ought
not to want them. These things have
in them a vcracity, faithfulness, q
fundamental force, sober as justice and
spectacular as nature, which finally
seems to ask whether it is not real
ism itself which is the great adventure
Before such picture "The Crimson
Gardenia" is only rather gaudy
flower in the Granny of that rock; the
flower calls to many an adventure,
with the voice Of siren, but give us
the rock.