The screen

PARE LORENTZ

BARNUM, BAILEY AND BARRYMORE. A season ago, Irving Crant Thalberg put John and Lionel Barrymore in a picture and discovered that two Barrymores were better than one. Up to that time, neither had caused much excitement at cinema box-offices, hut after their successful appearance together— "first time on any screen"—in Arsene Lupin, it was only logical to conclude that three Barrymores gathered together would give the customers even more of a thrill.

Perhaps they will, but they might just as well have been allowed to juggle, or do nip-ups for the curious as to have wasted their unquestioned ability in Rasputin and the Empress. It is a clumsy, pretentious, aimless motion picture—self-conscious and stilted from beginning to end and an obvious circus stunt at the expense of a famous name.

From the look of the thing, the story was simply a means to an end; the point was to show all the Barrymores to the customers in as many moods as possible. We have had. of course, hundreds of stories, books, articles and essays about old and new Russia, and one could excuse an author for repetition, if the well-known incidents of the ill-fated Romanoffs had been written with some dramatic skill, but historical characters in this movie are made to act like creatures in a ten-cent melodrama.

Rasputin, the central character in the plot, is depicted as a charlatan who develops into a cross between Houdini, Jack the Ripper and Gilles de Retz. He hypnotizes the Czarevitch, gains the devotion of the royal family, and then proceeds to assault princesses right down the line. The machinations through which he gains control of the Russian Empire sound more like a movie producer's conference than the canny manipulations of a shrewd, powerful peasant; and there is no reasonable motivation in his plotting; he is a pathological I ago, all bad, and, as a result, utterly unbelievable.

If any actor could blow fire into such a hollow figure as Rasputin is made out to be in this production, that actor is Lionel Barrymore; and he does leer and belch and bluster some power into his characterization. Moreover, he prevents it from appearing downright ridiculous. 11 is relatives have practically nothing to do except appear noble and solemn, and Ethel does look and act like a queen. Under the circumstances she could do no more.

It is, of course, a usual fault with historical dramatists to expect their audiences to supply half the drama; they approach their characters with a naive respect and believe that merely by announcing: "the President of the United States!" that the audience will swoon with excitement when an actor in costume and heard walks on the stage, tilts his head, and drones solemnly: "Gentlemen be seated".

In Rasputin and the Empress all the historical characters speak like grammar school histories; never like men and women. The generals are always declaiming the horrors and glories of battle, and the Czar goes around mumbling in his beard about saving holy Russia and his holy dynasty. When what I suppose was intended as the big dramatic moment occurs: when Rasputin is urging the Emperor to declare war against his German brother-in-law, the whole cast indulges in some of the classiest famous sayings since the last road company of My Maryland was stranded in Ypsilanti, Mich.

The dialogue is banal enough, but, worse, it takes the picture absolutely nowhere. For all his villainy, we are supposed to believe that Rasputin is doing something oddly beneficial for Russia; a country which throughout the show is symbolized by a half-dozen extras in extra long beards. We hear there is to be a Revolution, but that is indicated by an engineer shaking a bag of nails offstage into the microphone. We are shown some faded and jumpy old newsreel clips of the Czar mobilizing his troops, and of the start of the Revolution as a last bit of historical fact; and we see the Romanoffs slaughtered in a cellar, a scene which appeared in almost exact detail some years ago in a silent movie.

As the producers made the mistake of thinking that three Barrymores make a movie, I probably should have concerned myself with their work, hut all I can say is that Lionel, John and Ethel Barrymore couldn't have, even with the aid of John Drew, Ethel Barrymore Colt, and baby Jack Barrymore as the Czarevitch, made Rasputin and the Empress, as it was written, anything but a profoundly stupid motion picture. If the px-ess and customers think their simultaneous appearance is curious enough feat to Avarrant shouting in the streets, more power to them.

THE SHEEP AND THE GOATS. I long ago gave up any attempt at understanding the mysterious way in which the collective minds of the Hollywood generalissimos work. One company will allow a good director to treat an excellent manuscript with the greatest respect; two weeks later the same crew will he turned loose on something patently artificial and second-hand. The same company which produced A Farewell To Arms, and in so doing defied censors and the Hays office; the company which had the courage to film the book with all the gusto intact, and which continued to battle diplomatic corps and censors AVIIO tried to wreck their job, to finish with an unusually splendid print, marred only by a mawkish conclusion and unescapable deletions: this same company a week later presents us with a lemon called Madame Butterfly, an ancient story made duller by labored humor and a creaking, revamped manuscript.

The company responsible for Red-Headed Woman and The Champ and Laurel and Hardy and The Wet Parade, now manufactures a melodrama called Flesh and obviously built out of a hundred plots; forces a good character actor, Wallace Beery, to give a silly imitation of Emil Jannings; and the following week shows us the three Barry-mores in as dull an exhibition as you'll ever Avant to see.

What is so consistently paradoxical is that they should believe their obvious claptrap ever could be taken seriously. Their good productions are simply too good. They are gradually ruining themselves by improvement.

Thus, you could not ask for a more skillful or careful, or genuinely fine production than the producers have given The Animal Kingdom.

To begin with, it is by far the best study of poor little rich people Philip Barry has written. It is amusing and deft, and there is less of the Barry nobility and a great deal more playwriting than was to be found in Tomorrow and Tomorrow, Holiday or Paris Bound. It so happens that all the aforementioned plays have been made into movies and that Holiday, Paris Bound and noAv The Animal Kingdom were directed by Edward H. Griffith.

I can't, of course, be sure there really is a person by the name of E. H. Griffith, because to date he has done nothing hut direct Barry plays and has, furthermore, made them much better stuff in celluloid than they were on the stage. Where Holiday was a fragile play confused by monologuists, Donald Ogden Stewart and Hope Williams, the motion picture was a smooth and appealing affair. Griffith's casts have been accurately chosen, and the few camera changes he has made in manuscript—as, for instance, the ballet he showed in Paris Bound—have been sound and emphatic.

As Mr. Griffith directed The Animal Kingdom, and as he secured Leslie Howard, William Gargan, Ann Harding and Myrna Loy for his leading characters, it could hardly miss being a splendid production. It could have missed easily if the producers had considered themselves better judges of drama than Barry, but, here, as in those rare Hollywood productions where they do the reasonable thing, they turned the manuscript over to director Griffith intact. That manuscript, as you probably know, SIIOAVS us a charming gentleman who gives up a wonderful mistress to marry a girl who becomes a mistress indeed. Mr. Barry, Mr. Griffith and Mr. Howard make it as charming, shrewd a show as we have had this season.

It is a delight to watch clever craftsmanship, to see an able actor such as Leslie Howard deal with it, and to hear as well-turned lines as Barry provides in this play. I do feel that Miss Harding is becoming too lah-de-dah for comfort, and that too many movies have made her careless and superficial. She wears flat-heeled shoes, carries her arms like a wrestler and expects by these tricks alone to appear to be Mr. Barry's sincere lady; she helps her portrait none by turning full face to the camera and oh'ing and aiding in a cultured Bryn Mawr monotone; she over-acts in scenes much too subtle for ordinary movie treatment, and she does not give Mr. Howard the support he deserves.

Continued on page 60

Continued from page 48

Mr. Howard and Mr. Gargan did the play for several months before the footlights and they hardly could be improved upon. One of those English actors unheard of in England, Mr. Howard has charm, and an adroit wit which seemingly is infallible on stage or screen; and the Mr. Gargan who is his prize-fighting butler is as engaging an actor as we have seen in many months.

I assure you that The Animal Kingdom has been given the best of care, and that, as a result, it is a splendid picture, well worth your time. I advise you that Cynara, equally as good a production, has been translated with equal care.

Yet, as a customer, it probably difficult to make out from the press ballyhoo which are the sheep which are the goats in movie theatres. The only general rule I can give is that where you find the most noise, such as that accompanying any nouncement of Rasputin and the Empress, The Kid from Spain, or 20,000 Years in Sing Sing, you can be sure the boys know they have a lemon are trying to palm it off on the public.