New-York tribune., 1919-05-04
Who Hauing Eyes See Not

sctually fed in panic up Broadway Int,
the Strand, where the picture was Johr
Barrymore in "The Test of Honor
and as, facing at such a bound the
terrific reimbursement of mediums. we
dumped ourselves down before a screen
gone dead, real scare shivered in US
II you have not seen "The Jest" do
US the justice to realize that it is as
direct an attack upon the senses as
music is, or as what a truly ladylike
friend calls "liquor." Your sight and
your hearing, what nerves, sensibili-
ties, susceptbilities, you are possessed
OF, your sympathies and terrors, are
all made drunk with it, but drunkest
with the salience of it's color and its
eloquent changing sound Imagine,
then, being suddenly submerged within
a colorless and soundless world! It
was sitting. 1t was incredible, insane,
as if in the middle Of an opera we had
suddenly been stricken deaf as if while
staring into the heart Of tropical
sunrise we had suddenly fallen over
board, deep down into gray water. Or,
since the mere reflection of "The Jest"
striking down to us would certainly the
multitudinous seas incardine, cay it
was like waking from a delirium of
flushed glory into the back bedroom of
Harlem fiat early on q rainy morning.
We have never been so near the view
point of those unfortunates who see the
screen merely as fat surface over
which soundless silhouettes glide aim
lessly in dumb dream about nothing.
Still, we refused to sink. And when
we rose again with "The Jest" washed
out OF our eyes we found ourselves
looking on no fatness, but into depths,
and along surfaces modelled most ten
derby of shadows and light, and found
shade after shade of silver and gray. of
pearl and lavender, and faintest russet
and velvety smoke black. We breathed
again, and required our attention to
stop gasping and attend to the picture.
We have seen far duller nonsense,
but never bolstered by such fine pro-
duction. The lovelest photography,
really chosen cast-it's a delight to see
Constance Binney and to catch even SO
inadequate a glimpse Of J. W. Johnson
"A scenario which, despite stodrv
titles, is clear and workmanlike, and
actually YIELDS the continuity by the
lapse of years instead Of splitting the
picture in two by it, direction which
goes a long way toward humanizine
and harmonizing it's metallic material.
by setting its best seller
pomp Of wealth in the softest and most |
dlgnitied serenity, are all fatty con-
tradicted by plot Of machine-made
claptrap.
1t deals with the torments and ven
geance of a gentle youth whose life is
wrecked-as, for that matter, is the
hero's OF 1.-THE Jest"-by the prevailing
beasts of the world. But right here.
believe US, the resemblance stops. The
young American Of Oppenheim's novel.
which was originally and much more
relevantly entitled "The Malefactor."
IS thrown into prison by the machina
tlons of vampire who is scarcely the
tin profile Of character; the motiya-
ton is of sort which puts nickel
IN the slot and gets out any old pack
age OF treachery, murder or sleeping
powders, and there is so little inter
relation Of peoples lives that the Incl
dents are mere series O concus-
Slons, with about as much emotional
tone as the clank of an area gate; the
story certainly appears to offer moth
ing whatever out of which to weave
that atmosphere of glamour, of sugges-
ton, without which, in melodramatic |
crises, characters merely bump Violent |
" into each other and rebound with a
crash; finally, when Owen Winprave.
the hero, has got his enemies all !,
crawling on their stomachs and then
wipes up the dirt with them, he turns
20 the girl who loves him and saws
hat, after all, he doesn't want re-
7enge, but only her. It's pretty, but is
It Art? From every point of view but
one, isn't it shame-or, as our enemy
cult would moan, an outrage.--to pre-
sent John Barrymore in 1t? Yes. but
hat one Is worth all the other ninetv-