The New Pictures

A Lost Lady. When the heavens fall and the eruption of eternity smothers the world, this department will probably be still protesting peevishly that straight character study cannot be reflected in the camera lens. For it is the words that come out of a man's mouth that define him, more exactly than all his grimaces and gestures. Willa Cather's A Lost Lady was a character study if ever one was written. The book had no further plot nor purpose. It told of a lovely, intense young woman who married an old and impoverished aristocrat of a small Middle West town. It showed how utterly impossible became her life; it told what she did about it. All this the picture does, and only half the heroine comes to life. Despite an exceptionally adroit performance by Irene Rich, the film is feeble.

Broken Laws. When Mrs. Wallace Reid was prompted by the oily counsels of certain picture promoters to capitalize in the name of reform the death of her famed husband, the public was divided between crass curiosity and amazed disappointment. The curious were in the majority, apparently, since her dope film went the rounds and now has a successor. The present protest is against jazz and the younger generation. It teaches that parents must set a good example to their children. It follows the faithful old anti-jazz formula which has been a cinema staple five long years.

Flaming Love. The producer helped himself to Eugene O'Brien, Ben Alexander, Mae Busch and several other expensive luxuries in casting this picture. The investment seems to have been sound. Without their able acting, the old Western story would have wabbled. It tells of an open-spaces girl married to a creaky drunkard from the East, how he gambled away his character and her fortune and how the burly, silent hero suddenly stepped in from the side lines. The genuine and inventive talents of Miss Busch, in particular, were highly helpful.

The Redeeming Sin. The cutting edge of Nazimova's personality is far too sharp for such crumbly material as this affords. She plays the Paris cocotte who had a good heart after all (cf. Kiki). Lou Tellegen, as the Apache, and a lot of fairly well faked Paris scenery are also thrown away.