Arizona republican., 1921-05-26

Both as an historical and as a human document, it is magnificent. Lubitsch
 the director, brings history to life and turns dead and gone figures into human beings It is an old saying that the public does not want his torical dramas and that no one will go to see costume plays. But De ception" has proved that the public l is ten times more interested in an historical drama than they are in the average brand of treacle handed out by directors who have neither educational background nor imagina- tion. The picture defies another rule of foutine productions: it ends tragi- cally. The only quarrel those who saw it had with the picture was that | il ended too soon. Most of them
 would have been happy if Lubitsch had gone on and filmed the rest of English history.
 German Propaganda Again
 It was immediately after this that | the old wartime cries of German opaganda" began to be circulated
 on Broadway It was pointed out that | Deception was really nothing more 1 than a scandalous episode in English history; that the Germans had de- 1 liberately selected Henry VIII for pioturization because he ~ was a ! tyrant and a libertine and ate veni-
 son dipped in gravy with his fingers. Anne Boleyn had been represented not as the scheming vixen history
 paints her, but as merely a weak and cruelty sinned against woman.
 Huh" said the American picture i people vindicatively, we notice that the Germans stick carefully to the | history of other nations. They don't
 dare film any of their own.''
 To this charge the defenders of the films retort that even if they do con | tain propaganda (which they do not grant) there is nothing to prevent
 the French and British from retaliat- 1 ing in kind. An investigation of | German monarchs would probably | yield a rich harvest of lurid material
 which the American public would be l only too delighted to review. they | point out Furthermore, the first | French film to reach us "JAccuse, | Is frankly a propaganda picture, de- picting some of the worst phases of
 the late war. The soft pedal is placed
 on German brutality, it is true. There | are no seductions of nuns or muti- lations of infants in the picture, but | it is a plea for sympathy for the
 French nation, which is struggling ! so bravely to recover from the deso-
 lation of the war.
 l But propaganda or not. the cham
 pions of the new foreign films de-
 clare that they are a welcome relief | from the average American movie | which is largely devoid of artistic
 merit. While Gypsy Love-" the
 latest Pola Negri film, does not live
 up to the high standard set by the
 first foreign pictures, the majority is said by those who have seen them
 to be exceptionally good. In many
 respects. it cannot be denied, the | European directors are ahead of our
 directors over here. For instance
 nothing has yet been produced in this
 country to compare with the artistic
 sets designed by a noted European
 modernist for ''The Cabinet of Dr 1 Caligari." It could easily be done in
 Hollywood. We have plenty of artists | in this country who could achieve | equally good results. But the fact
 remains that it has not been done.
 The moving picture people them
 selves are willing to admit this. It | is not the artistic merit of the new | foreign films to which they object
 nor of which they are jealous. They 1 have been eagerly viewed by actor
 and director folk, who are always | open to suggestions for improving
 the pictures which they resent-a
 cost with which the American in
 dustry cannot begin to compete. In
 this they see a real danger which | threatens the livelihood of Jver 60.- | 900 American bread winners. and
 which eventually may turn this na ton from the worlds greatest pro- | ducer of films, into its greatest film buyer.