New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1919-07-20
Era of ''7he Duchess
In Movie Drama

| Line" a Paramount picture, starring
Irene Castle.
And you ask us what novelties there
ar. for the public taste! And how the
promise of the movies is developing!
Suppose we answer that things which
depend upon the public taste never de-
velop, but merely revert? That the
novelty now demanded by the public
taste is the drawing room drama of
twenty-five years ago-that tight little
box Of gcnteel sentiment into which no
breath of nature and no person lacking
credentials as "a consistent first-class
passenger through life" was entered.
When we see the constantly growing
tendency away from Irregular old movie
stuff" toward the high-class, smart SET
real-society photodrama, what elce can
we answer?
AS for the acting, Mrs. Castles
neither supports nor contradicts US,
acting being a game the rudiments OF
which Mrs. Castle has never learned.
When she merely skins along the sur
face Of the picture and lets her blithe
waywardness and light grace of move
ment act for her she inspires US to
dover her with every quality of spoiled
yet gallant girlhood, but once she
comes to stand and begins any of
her conscientious efforts to express
emotion all is over-aftcr all, one can't
play every game. This game and its
! rules Mr.. Vernon Steele, on the other
hand, knows only too we'll; he can con-
form to whatever conventions are i'm
posed upon him, and as the hero Of
the firing line Of life the impositions
are of the sort to make his performance
a perfect example of that past-the
! sugar-coated parlor past of "Gold
Elsie" and "The Duchess" and perhaps
even Of "Little Eva"-to which, over
the heads Of George Cohan and G. B. S.
and even, If we remember, some Of Mr..
Chambers's own works, we are begin
ming to revert.
To represent ethereal melancholy In
the most expensive clothes, to grapple
with life only by submitting gracefully,
and to express love only by looking re-
signed, to stand with bowed head as
chronically as a weeping willow, to kiss
the heroine's hand in humble worship
every time she says anything which
reveals a little more clearly how selfish
and how silly she is, to heave long
signs and ycarn pensivcly after her
retreating form, to express inner
depths of poetic anguish largely by
turning an extraordinarily fine profile
to the moon-and a painted moon at
that! A quite openly and uncamou-
lagedly painted moon in motion pict-
urc! Is not this, for an accomplished
actor-is not this a hard fate?
Let all who think so up and rouse
themselves, for to it the whole tribe
of heroes will be bound once the draw
ing room drama, which has been kicked
out of the stage door, has settled down
again over the motion picture screen
the screen that used once to mirror
mountains. Nothing in drawing room
drama is quite so pitiable as the hero.
We see the difference the moment we
turn to the husband in name only, who,
if not really villain, is held to be
something like villain, or at least to
as to be allowed so much of his preroga-
tive that he may be played, if not as
a human being, yet as something like 8
human being. Indeed, we are obliged
to admit that in the hands of Davi(
Powell this prerogative is pushed te
of those who rudely take an ell after
having been generously given an inch
Mr.. Powell persists in playing his part
, as if it were real and thrusts into i
all sorts Of things-irony, temper
humor, intense feeling, also that sor
Of moonless force which belongs to .
I character evincing a realistic acceptanc,
D Of facts and the arrival at conclusion
y through rational and varied thought
0 by which he frequently pierces tn
= sweet and sanctimonous painted moon
d light dream and startles US wild
n awake.
e Another disturbing element is tina
: Charles Maigne, the director, grabs II
e despite that moon Of his. every passin
e handful Of outdoor freshness an
II beauty, and these blow the canvas O
n the drawing room world about lik
al draughts from an exiled Eden. TIL
sc rowboat in the fog, even the mere sc
ID beach and grass and gardens, tn
ID Adirondack woods, the flight Of tn
|; stag startled by the suicides shot, tn
ID fawns leaping along the horizon-i
II these we catch lovely breaths an
o. glimpses Of the real motion pictur
ID world beyond the drawing room an
le the consistent first class passenger
Sc through lifc--thc world "where all yc
st asks the heaven above and the roa
s. before you"
is Perhaps this stolen oxygen accoun
,g for one evidence of the public tas'