New-York tribune., 1919-06-22
By Virginia Tracy

The immense amount of interest,"
felt in the forthcoming series of Emf
nent Authors Pictures has still to base
large part of its confidence upon the
pictures already produced by Rex
Reach. While other eminent authors
sat wan and shuddering at the in
iouities of the motion picture business,
casting up sheir eyes to "that court of
Justice which resides in the ceiling"
Mr.. Beach sailed out to study the
monster, to learn its PAGES, saddle and
bride it; put, we are told, his money
on it and now rides it as a winner.
Conduct like this certainly warns the
heart. We do not wonder that q flock
Of eminent authors are now at the
heels of this powerful shepherd,
greatly to the ultimate advantage,
there can be little doubt, of themselves,
the motion picture business and the
motion picture public. Meanwhile we
have seen two Rex Beach pictures in
ings little mixed.
This mixedness begins with the title
Of "The Crimson Gardenia"-to our
minds beautiful title, richly suggest
ing romantic and mysterious melo-
drama. And let us joyfully pronounce
this melodrama's many sterling quail
ties. 1t has, as was only to be ex-
pected, capital scenario. 1t has swift,
straight, suspensive, cumulative con-
tinuity, some good tricks and quick
surprises, with delightful and exciting
scene in telephone exchange and a
happy economy in sub titles; the pro-
ducing has been not only handsomely
but imaginatively done, with real feel
ing for the picturesque, and a glamour
Gus photography. What more do we
want, then, from picture which says
in it's own advertising that it is melo-
drama pure and simple and doesn't
pretend to be anything else? All, but
that's exactly the thing-consciousl
or unconsciously, it does pretend to be
something else! 1t pretends to be
romance.
1t makes this pretension in its title,
in its use of the masks and costumes
Of the Mardi Gras and above all in that
very glamour of photography which
veils it in glow of golden shadow.
Within this shadowy glow the lively
.but commonplace detective story skins
along so rapidly, so dexterously that
its momentum carries it over the usual
inconsistencies with uncommon smooth
ness, sufficient for any entertainment
which is merely entertainment and
does not pretend to stir nor to enchant
US. We have "rattling good story"
but it is in just that amber atmosphere
that we are annoyed by things that
rattle The clank of machinery, no
matter how we'll run, does not make
up to US for hearing, as we had been
led to hope, nothing but the excited
humping Of our own heart.
You cannot call your picture The
Crimson Gardenia" without commit
ting yourself to all the elegance and
mystery and passionate splendor of
romance as deeply as if you called it
Edgar Allan Poe or Lucrezia Borgia.
When you follow up such title with
a decorative subtitle displaying
dagger, mask and bloodstained
flower, you have got us into a fit
condition to start for Venice or to see
"Tfe lest" but not to descend upon a
g. counterfeiters. We cannot
az. anterfeiters as romance, not
even when you entice US by making
them crippled and epileptic. There is
nothing romantic about catching
crooks. "Say it is necessary but do
not say it is beautiful" as the soldier
cries in "Under Fire" And the truth
is that the counterfeiters and the
blind mother and the police and the too
mechanical and convenient crcdulity
hero, though we might have been glad
enough to enjoy them as prime sensa-
tional Crook stuff" disappoint US as
pretty cheap and mean material when
we come upon them through all this
atmosphere Of brilliant and tragic ad-
venture, of maskers mistaken for each
other, Of flowers that give death
signal, Of love at first sight amid
cloaked dangers and mute, armed men
in the costume Of the holiday masquer-
ade, forever-and most decoratively!
looming in omnous silence upon the
lovers, through all those amber alleys
and bronze barns and shadowy courts,
things that spell poetry or that spell
nothing.
Probably from desire to keep up
the pace the characterizations are too
crude and abrupt to do anything toward
bridging the difference between the ac'
ion and the atmosphere; in what we
aay call the ~sympathet;c heavy" the
producers seem nervously aware OF
this and have got the part considerably
oyeracted. He first enters in a secret
Hight to an old curio shop and goes
through something like the beginning
81 brigand's dance, so ostentatiously
does he peer and hcarken up and down
me street; then frames himself in the
doorway with outstretched arms, then
shirls around and shoots through, 4
sru'y remarkable entrance for a man
eager to avoid attention! OF course
: dshnite piece of business like this