New-York tribune., 1921-11-07
On the Screen
Mrs. Lydig Hoyt in Strand Feat
ure; ssThe Shcik" at the
Rialto and the Rivoli
By Harriette Undcrhill

Strand this week, but now that she has
them 1t would take more than one won
derful thing to wrest them from her.
If it had not been Tor the delightful
personality and the art OF Mas Tai
madge we think 1.-THE Wonderful Thing
would have been very dull thing. We
90 not know what the play by Lillian
Trsmble Bradley was like, but certainly
it does not transfer to the screen very
we'll
Jacqueine Laurentine Boggs is the
daughter OF an American hog manu-
facturer. She WAS educated in France,
and that is why she speaks broken
nglishsometmes. IT you miss the
FIRST 100 feet of the picture you won't
know this, and you'll wonder why Jac's
language is full OF quaint mistakes
like 81 give him not one pink cent"
and HE give me the atmosphere" Har-
rison Ford is the f1irtatous son of an
old and fast decaying family. In fact.
as they turned out, we should say that
most Of them were pretty rotten as it
was. There was q young brother who
cot drunk and forged alternately and
an cid maid sister who sat around and
waited for her lover to return, and a
younger divorced sister who painted
pictures and was as disagreeable ms she
could possibly be in the bargain. and
an old mother who used the money be-
longing to her children to try to break
the stock market and got broke her
self
Well. because Jac was Just out Of a
convent and because she had fallen in
. love on sight when Don told her he
loved her she believed him, although
she was the third girl he had said it
TO IN thirty minutes. Anyhow, hard
pressed as he was, he married her: and
then his relatives, while living off the
tat OF the land derived from Jac's hogs.
lhsuited her at every turn. She finally
goes back to the hog farm when she
cannot stand it any longer, though we
should think it would have been more
OF vacation than a change And here.
amid the hogs and close to nature. Jac
and Don make it all up. Harrison Ford
is the young husband, Mrs. Lydig Hoyt
plays the disagreeable artist sister.
and one would not suspect that it was
neT flrst screen appearance. She is also
very handsome. Others in the cast arc
Mabel Bert, Howard Truesdale, Robert
Agnew and Walter McEwen. Herbert
Brenon directed the picture.
A victory pageant is given instead
OF the overture. Then comes tab
leau, called peace" with the Strand
male quartet and Kitty Mclaughlin,
soprano. Judson House sings pro-
logue to the picture called "Deep in
Your Heart of Hearts" Maria de la
Tore plays "Tambourin Chmois" on
the violin. The comedy is called "The
Love Egg"
In spite OF preconceived prejudices
and great scoln for young ladies like
Diana Mayo, who was continually be-
ing dragged away by Arabian knights,
Edith Hull's story, "The Sheik," almost
got US at certain moments in the per-
formance yesterday at the Rivoli
SO because the title role is played by
Rudolph Valentino, and most any
woman would try to bear it with equa-
nlmity if he carried her away on his
Arabian steed to be the queen of the
caravan. "The Sheik" is the sort of
story which will make every woman
who is married to a kind and indulgent
husband go home from the theater
and feel her heart filled with great
pity for him because he is so prosy,
and greater pity for herself because
instead OF riding downtown shopping
on the Lenox Avenue local her days
might have been filled with dashes
across the sands on a milk-white steed
pursued by an ardent dark-eyed gen
.'erlan who loves her so that he IL
pene on smashing her in the face and
dragging her home by the hair of her
hsad. On, how grand that would be!
And we predict. too. that this is going
to be a dull week for all bashful and
biond young men. All those who arc
tail and dark may rush in this week
ana take the lady of their choice bv
storm Rudolph Valentino has set a
: r
all this, for if we, with our age and
experience, could be affected by the
picture to the extent of forgetting how
SHY the story was, what would It NOT
DO to thousands who do not think that
the story is silly?
hrgo Riesenfeld felt pretty sure Of
ITS drawing powers when he put The
Sheik" in two theaters at the same
time, and we are sure he will not be
delsappolnted. We. were afraid that Mr..
Valentine would make the SheilS y con-
servative and dignified person. buf he
maze MN tine young animal, with a
sense of humor and prediction for
vamping. When he would close his
eyes and then open them very wide he
sometimes reminded us of Theda Bara
pia. ing Carmen" Agnes Ayres doesn't
60 anything in particular with -Diann
Mayo, the young lady who was the OBJ
1ect OF Ahmed's desire, and although
she looked so pretty at times we felt
inclined to say:. "What's all the shout
IN for!' You Will realize now si]lv
the story. is when we tell you that tho
meaner Ahmed treated Diana the more
she loved him, and one day when she
went out to ride she got down off her
morse and wrote in the sand, "Ahmed
love- Hours after he came along
and saw the confession written in tho
sand, and that is how he traced Ter to
the stronghold of the Arabian bandit
who had stolen her. Then, when he Law
unconscious from a wound he had re-
celved in the fracas, she took one of
his hands and said to his friend, Raoul
de st. Hubert: "Hs hands arc large
for an Arab" The cue, of course. was
for the friend to say: "Oh, he is not an
Arab. Bis father was English and his
mother Spanish" He had been adopted
by the old Sheik, etc.
Now, could anything be fairer than
that? He loves her and has repented
of his wicked deeds and intends to re-
nounce her if she so wills. She loves
him, but cannot marry an Arab. He is
not an Arab--only by environment.
hlndly play Hearts and Flowers"
George Milford directed "The Sheik," {"
and it has splendid desert scenes and
everything in it to make it more allur-
ing than it was in book form. Monte
katterjohn made the scenario.
There is Prizma picture of the
desert in color and a prologue Oriental