THE CINEMA
FAIRBANKS TRIUMPHANT
A REALLY fine film does so much good not only to the people who enjoy it, but to the cinema as a whole,. to its status, that its arrival makes one wish to compel those who do not, for various reasons, usually, enter picture-palaces to go in and .sce for themselves what films at their best can be. The "Black Pirate, Douglas Fairbanks' new picture at the Tivoli, Strand, is such a film. I should like all thoSe who judge the cinema on poor films seen casually, those who condemn it unseen, and those who attribute the peceadilloei of 'small boys as well as the turpitude of the lower classes to the ".per- nicious influence. of the .cinema," to see . The Black Pirate. I would beg them_ t to view it with an open mind, to ask them- selves what such a film. must mean to person so poor as to` be Unable to afford any alternatfve 'recreation but our • gad;
debilitating public houses. ..
Each new Douglas Fairbanks:. seems better than the last (except,perhaps, The Thief of Baghdad). Don Q, which will be in a great many cinemas this "week, is 'delightful--a quick-moving romantic tale such as would have appealed to Mozart for one of his Operas, infused with a spirit ofraillery and catching continually at the skirts. of - beauty." But The Black Pirate is still better, and out-tops even R. L. Stevenson for delight in bad, bold bueanneers. It crowds in with subtle harmony majestic sailing ships, bright swordsmanship, the elear green seas. and golden sands of the tropics of our dreams. For the film is in colour, the first in which 'photographic tone and colour have worked together successfully. Blood is blood in this Picture ! And through it all the fairy-tale personality of the agile Fairbindrs weaves its gracious, -gay poein to bodily poise, mental alertness and the joy of life. The story is actually rather like a' fairy tale. It tali-Of a yoUng duke, sole survivor of a ship taken by -pirates, who for revenge joins the cut-throat band and proves his mettle to
them by taking single-haiuled the next merchant vessel that comes along. Like the princes who clirdb hilts of glaSs, and Slay monsters where others fail with ignomini, Fairbanks captures his huge ship easily and is acclaimed by his blood- thirsty companions. On the captured ship there is, of course, a distressed princess, whom Fakbanks eventually frees after whirlwind fights and marine dexterity of an entrancing and singular kind. The Black Pirate is wholly—to steal a phrase from Juno and the Paycock—a darling film. There is no ostentation, no mock morality, no cheap love-inaking, no error of taste, and, above all, no stupidity in it.
Another film of the first water which comes in a feW weeks to the New Gallery, Regent Street, is 'Vaudeville, the latest and in some ways the most generally acceptable of all the highly intelligent films Gerniany has sent us.
A grim drama in the life of a troupe of acrobats, it is incom- parably acted by Emil Jannings as a great, dumb man of muscle, childishly and desperately in love with a beautiful doll of a girl, and cheated of her fidelity by his partner in a breath-taking acrobatic turn on the music-halls. The photography of Vaudeville is incredibly fine ; it strips away every inessential, and with a clear eloquence lets the audience right into the lives of the three people concerned, nailing each turn of the drama home. This is not a film for young people, but for intelligent adults it offers a gripping photo- drama of a quality seldom surpassed on screen or stage.
Of Nell GwYri, the English film shown recently at the new
Plaza- in Regent Street; it can sincerely be said that it is infinitely brighter and better than the average of our native pictures. Depending as it did wholly on the ability of Dorothy Gish in her interpretation of the gamine Nell, the film was, as its director 'Mr. Herbert Wilcox described it, a character study. It was a popular version of the romance of Nelly and 'Old Rowley, and consequently gave room for a playful performance by the star as an impish child-mistress, in a series of decollete and diaphanous dresses. If was light and entertaining and if it never rose to real distinction-It kept up well ; audiences were much taken with Nell's foundation of the Chelsea Hos- pital as the picture reported it.
IRIS BARRY.
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