New-York tribune., 1919-10-05
Bv VIRGINIA Tracv

We never see the perturbation of an
though we had found our jSb. If only
old melodramas furnished q sufficiently
steady stream of picturizations to
make our job pay we should set up as
an interpreter OF what once made them
80 alive that to-day their ghosts still
might, we think, be protitably visited
under our eye the feshless skeleton
which is all That the manuscript Of an
old melodrama ever is and politely
cry, What in--' or words to that
effect, what in sense and reason did
people ever see in this?"
Since we are not there to reply, "In
sense and reason? Nothing what
ever." the producer now considers,
"Al can do is to put backbone into
make what it talks about Ineligible.
Well, can ill it with the handsomest
effects, prop it with real all-star
cast, do in short my dread duty by it
and yet keep myself going by the
knowledge that there is at least a
storm in the thing-a storm at sea.
Into a storm | can throw all my force,
all my sense OF horror and beauty, OF
conflict and passion and doom, and if,
wien We SOt IL QOtiC, ~ IVA No'i AtsS
his hand upon the oceans name, as he
calls it, any better than | have, let him
show me! Naturally. then, my title
shall be about my storm; forgetting
the unnecessary remainder chat made
The Romany Rye | shall call my pict
ure The Life-Line.'"
A Look Back Into Paast Melodramas
But let US fasten our eye upon q
button, or whatever mesmeriZer Will
send US back into the earliest mists Of
childhood, and see. what we see. We
see forest. 1t is a canvas forest
with grass cloth and grass mats; as
a highly expensive and o-that-date
production it probably has built runs
with grass mats sprlnkled over them
but we suspect that from the past ii
still carries green bank"-one OF
those little lcgless sofas which were
set about in forests for tho heroine t.
faint on and which, just before q
change Of set, were liable to be
hauled of by a rope, even with the
heroine's still unconscious form ex-
tended thereon. But these things we
do not see; we see only wonders.
The two most outstanding are a
collie dog and a cap on a gentleman's
head. The cap is soft and droopy and
strange of shape; later days have
taught Us to call il q Tam O. Shanter
and to regard it-saye for All OCCASION
al, slight fatiguc-with no emotion
whatever. But in this forest hour, it is
new to as; taken in conjunction with
loose vclveteen clothes and leggings, it
is pure romance. By it we know that
its tall, heart-stopping:ly, handsome
wearer is the hero; facing him, as if
out of "Godcy's Magazine" stands
Virtue in her blondness and white
muslin and blue sash, in her fiat, straw
hat with its garland of innocent flow
ers. She is doubly known to US as
the heroine by the devoted collie dog,
ever present for her protecton-for
heroines had to be protected every
single minute in those days, whatever
"uppercuttcrs" Haywood Broun may
insist upon their being to-day. We
cannot remember from what awful
menace the Tam O. Shantercd hero has
just rescued her, nor are we at all
clear as to what happened afterward; !;
We only know that they are at once
strangers and lovers, for these two
arc in the Romeo and Juliet class, hav-
ing met-oh, some or any how!--amid
beauty and danger and love at first
sight
Story No Realism Can Make Real
There they stand in canvas forest
that somehow comes back to US all
green ana ROlu, 4laiucu AOIcScA Ill Vu1
mind az apart from anything in life
as il they we're adrft in soap-bub-
Bile; and the Tam O. Shanttred hero
Il saying, in the mellow and elegant
sinc song Of romance, the pensivc,
yearning -but-sweliing, muflled passion
of mytcriousness of cadenced melan-
choly. "And if ever you need a
friend, call upon the first man you
meet dwelling in these woods and say
that you know-the Romany Rye!" "rhe
Komany Rye-hark to the sound OF it,
the horns Of elfland fall not richer on
the earl" We had no idea between
earth and heaven that IT meant the
gypsy gentleman or, indeed. whether
IT meant anything at all. The unsup-
ported statement was in itself su7!-
Gent, and through an unme ntionable
number Of years it's melancholy and
mysterious die-away nonscnsc CON
TIMES not quite 70 die away. Naturally
the white muslin heroine nearly faints
at the sound Of IT., but braveIy music rs
g. wan smile, and then the Tam o Shan
tered hero is swaIlowed up by hig
woods-his natural kinship with tho
life there being the poetic little re-
ffajn OF the play; the soap bubble has
evaEprat<d and left the heroine in 4