The New Pictures

Lawful Larceny. As indicated by the title there is a deal of stealing to thicken the plot. Vigorous vampires wriggle from man to man extracting signed checks. Somebody cracks a safe. Then the injured wife sets things right by turning crook and stealing everything back.

There is a notable scene in The Rendezvous (expensive New York cafe) where Gilda Gray "she shakes and she jiggles ev'ry mussil of her body" for 25c., one quarter, the twentieth part of what it costs to see her do the same thing in the Ziegfeld Follies.

Three Wise Fools. This picture fractures celluloid tradition shamefully. It has three heroes, every one 60 years old. The heroine (Eleanor Burdman) kisses them consistently on the forehead instead of on the lips. Though the picture is played in a so-called "society" atmosphere, not a flapper or a bar of jazz is introduced. Could anything be more unorthodox? The strain was too great for the nice, old-fashioned director. At the last moment he rushed in a bandolined beauty (male) for the heroine to marry.

In adopting a daughter three ancient bachelors make the error of not beating around in the bushes of her past. Hiding in this shrubbery are a couple of Ossining graduates, 1920462 and 192324 1/2. Social calls are exchanged between the crooks and the girl. She is accused of shielding them from justice. Gun play. The crook with the mashed nose confesses. Virtue triumphs.

The Brass Bottle. In producing Down to the Sea in Ships, Maurice Tourneur, director of The Brass Bottle, dealt very effectively with a large rubber whale and one of the heaviest Northwest gales that ever struck the screen. In the present picture he fashions his effects from the improbable fabric of fancy. In fine, he tries to tell a fairy story. He finds the volatile genie far harder to manage than the rubber whale.

The story (from F. Anstey's fantastic novel) liberates an evil genie, four thousand years old, from captivity in the brazen receptacle. The liberator, an impoverished young architect, is promptly offered his heart's desire by the relieved genie. He wishes the contract on a certain building and a life contract with a certain girl. By various and wonderful means these wishes are fulfilled.