New-York tribune., 1919-08-31
By Virginia Tracy


Street-peremptorily beckoned us, we
told ourselves what a good thing 1t
rush began any particular desire to
see "The Mother and the Law" again.
Were we to go shifting after pict-
ure, of which we had caught brief
glimpses, as one of the three rings in
the circus, of Intolerance" when that
whirled past us few years ago? No,
plainly our duty was to offer the hand
someness of our strong-armed support
to the really new pictures; and fortu-
nately our will was at one with our
duty-let the dead past bury it's dead!
Trying to choose between "Deliver-
ance" and "Evangeline," we took the
trolley car downtown, alighting at
duty and our will turned westward
toward the Lyric or the Forty fourth
Street. But our feet, bearing with
them our corporeal person, turned east,
walked into the body of the George NJ.
Cohan Theatre and carried US to
seat for "The Mother and the Law"
We may have been surprised to find
ourselves there, but there we were.
nal
There we were, and there, for many a
bitter moment, we felt that our sin
had found us out. There is nothing
we like less than to see the captain of
our adventure making a fool of him.
self. And Mr.. Griffith has no single
folly or fault which is not richly ex-
ampled in "The Mother and the Law"
The heavyhanded prcjudices in which
nowadays he scorns TO deal, the de-
votion to labored mannerisms into
which he falls deeper all the time, his
oldfashioned reliance upon a chase"
in parallel action for his Climax his
battling, disorderly, confoundng habit
vf throwing everything in sight into
The pot without the least care as to
whether the ingredients have any nat
ural aptitude for stewing smoothly to-
gether so that what he produces may
be less d digestble meal than a vol
canic efuption-all his excess, his
abusiveness. his preachiness-a little
a. -
eXplodes--here they all tumble one
upon another in tumult of varied dis
tempers, which outdistances even g
peace conference, not without fire.
quenty tripping itself up and landing
itself black eye.
Plot Picked Out of 'Intolerance"
An ogress starts a society for the
suppression of the joys of life, just
SO and no less. Her own joys, how
ever, are SO costly that her brother,
evidently little short Of cash, is
obliged to command a 10 per cent cut
In wages in order to supply them
This is followed not improbaby, by q
strike. The laborers lose and wander
from their innocent rural homes into
young hero gets caught in the tolls OF
vice. but the young heroine redeems
him Early in their marriage he is
thrown into prison on false charge
the ogress reappears and eats the baby
that is to say, she captures it fol
her society on the grounds that it:
father is a convict and that its mother
took drink of whiskey when she hae
cold; then the society allows it tt
die of neglect. Follow more persecu
tions, through many exciting turns o
plot, from the results of which tn,
hero is rescued, not even at the foo
of the scafold, but when he is act
ually standing on the trap.
Well, as we sat looking at all thi
conglomerate but how genun. an,
highly charged excitement with q blanl
and icy stare, something happened t.
VI which had not happened at pictur
this many weary day. We do no
know just when our ice began not s
rauch to melt as to burn-to burn an
breast. We were no longer looking O
a picture, but lost into an experience
lost into it SO deep that when we cam
out into the sunny afternoon world W
came out into dream in which onl
the screens vivid living creatures wit
whom our real life was being led pc,
sisted by our side, and the mechanical
irrelevant crowds, going their futi
ways about Times Square were {
trees, walking.
Imagination Shows Through Defects
Now let us declare at once that tn
state of mind or state of feeling. tn
loss of identity, the being merged in
other people existence, is not on
what we So to pietpres for, but VIII
we go for to a.s ar all; when, thout
we've n't.N net. Y boarded our retu1
trolley car, We 10 not quite rememb