New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1919-06-01
By Virginia Tracy

CT all directors Tourneur seems to
us the most puzzling. A man with, in
tae way. an intensely dramatic
,agination. although capable of han
ing smoothly and progressively stuff
nich offers dramatic imagination
,verv reason to slight it, it begins to
seem clear that his great gift is sec
ond only to the greatest Of all the
gifts there are: This is the ability to
Visualize in the absolute degree; the
creative quality of seeing a thing that
unes not yet exist in all its pictorial
wer and significance. So that one
bewildered to find his imagination
eng its drama so largely in things
d so little in people; it is as if his
nd were capable of turning back be-
nd Scott himself to Mrs. Radcliffe
the whole school where the only
@ atty necessary to the hero in the
ngeon was that he should clank his
aims, and the only charm needed by
l.. heroine to make US follow her was
that she was likely to meet. a ghost
IL would be "some ghost" Tourneur
q uld do for us, no man better; he
" uld unsparingly seek in his sound
less medium-seek and find!-the
equivalent for the chains horrifying
clank. But the personal reaction off
the hero to his chains or the heroine
to her ghost he would simply leave
out. If il we're not for the dear, the
poignant. the ever lovely memory OF
"Prunella' that sweetest ache in our
memory in which we came so close to
the light of the divine fire that we
felt and feel its sting-if it were not
for "Prunella' we could not escape the
conviction that Tourneur cares moth
ing at all about acting and possibly
knows nothing.
Still, there is "Prunella," and now in
Nv mite Heather" there is the ronica
handling of the smooth judge as he
delivers his unimpeachable, detestabe
verdict; there is the sympathetic
amount of time allowed H. Z. Herbert
&s the villain to realize his financial
ruin-time he fills in with minute fine
strokes. apparently so casual, but so
truly realistic that it seems as if only
the veriest connolsseur of acting could
have sponsored them. These form, we
know. flaw in our case. And yet it
vas "White Heather" which brought
Us 10 some sense Of what Tourneur is
gc.,ing It.
- It low seems pretty certain that what
cares Tor is to write his stories in
GEOGRAPHY. and to depend upon the
photography combination of GER
tain motions with certain dramatically
lighted and suggestively ARRANGED OBJ
cts-to do the acting. He depends
upon it with thrilling success; this
photography in motion does positively
act the picture. A magnificent ambi-
iion a genuinely august triumph-if
only the stories written by his pho
Biography we're worth reading; if only
the motions combined with the lighted
and arranged objects were personal
=. motions, motions that reveal some
state Of feeling and summon US to
me understanding of human beings
under stress. When we say worth
reading we ought to signify that
they are kept magnificently worth
looking at in all those parts which
Iourneur picturizes; that he keeps
On building one memorable effect
upon another, but that when the monu-
1ent is done it commentaries nothing
particular. We believe that Tour
eur could give up a deserted throne
DOM and mount upon its dais an
'npty throne of which the regal and
liter pathos would suggest the terror
falling empires with q beauty that
you'd be enough to stop the heart. But
ever has he given us--exceptinq al
qays in "Prunella"-any sign that he
;ould put king upon that throne who
'ould lift his eyes and by thus telling
IS the story of forsaken monarch put
3 into communication with all human
oss; would Tourneur, in fact, have any
1se whatever for any such communica-
ion? Though doubtless If the king
Fouldn't muss up the eloquencc of the
'abeau itself by that lift of the ewes
7o would be arranged into a posture
superbly decorative.
In white Heather" for instance,
the gentlemen from the castle 20
sAooting. Among them is the villain,
secretly married to the governess at
ne castle; their child, a boy about
FIVE, is being brought up by a family
o. devoted cottagers. We see the child
oar on the Inoors with an old shep-
nerd; we see the gentlemen skulking
IN the underbrush after pheasants, and
then we read OF an ominous legend
connected With a great rock on the
moor. When we come to the moor it
10 time TO pause. Tourneur's camera
man, like Mar1hall Neilan's, has the Sc
cret Of superb weather; the golden
day brooding over the brown, rolling
country dreams in splendor Of light.
which makes the bare expanse of