The Screen

...In it, the son of a wealthy department store owner, and important civic figure, gets tangled up with a group of gangsters and falls in love with a cabaret singer whom the chief gangster uses for sundry purposes...

...The trouble is that pictures of this general calibre can, and will, be turned out by the bushel basket...

...In view of the fact that radio has been carrying the work of several great symphony orchestras into millions of homes at the same time, it seems to me that the movies have been doing their share toward the general fund of musical education...

...Luck will always favor the hero until the very end of the story—at which moment death may add to his stature...

...It is, of course, the old story of the indulgent parents who are morally responsible for the troubles of their sons and daughters by not taking a firm hand early...

...H. B. Warner as his father does likewise, except for two or three heavily overdrawn moments...

...The rest of the cast is no more than passable...

...Yet I doubt quite seriously whether the professional jingoists have anything to worry about...

...But since the time of Wagner, a new convention has been established which would certainly fit the screen requirements even more closely than musical comedy...

...This is bound to be true, as long as the medium through which war is presented to us remains a commercial enterprise...

...The time even comes when those who have suffered most from war are ready to parade their grief...

...Perhaps they are to be pitied for seizing upon this trifling compensation...

...The glamor of war is only heightened by showing what frightfulness and sufferings men can endure and still live...

...War is rapidly becoming as popular today as ever in the history of man...

...Hero worship is coming back as fast as the war generation will permit...

...The performances are all excellent, especially those of Richard Barthelmess as the squadron commander and of Douglas Fairbanks, jr., as his pal, Scotty...

...Journey's End, whatever it might mean to the thoughtful person, exalted the spirit of quiet heroism...

...In the case of The Dawn Patrol, the formula is more nearly that of Journey's End than of All Quiet on the Western Front...

...But to think that anything as tense and exciting as The Dawn Patrol can in any way obstruct the revivalists of jingoism is to entertain a false hope and to be blind to the perverse instincts of men themselves...

...Operas of the older Italian school would be just a bit ridiculous on the screen...

...In the present instance, Frank Albertson as the boy, Larry Grayson, who unwittingly gets involved in a robbery and a murder, gives a performance of real distincttion...

...Whether the movies will ever undertake such a task without outside subsidy from music lovers remains to be seen...

...It is not, fortunately, a tirade against the "younger generation," and, except for details, might just as well have been written fifty years ago...

...Even Carmen, freely transcribed, or Pagliacci would make excellent story entertainment...

...The scene in which Scotty's younger brother is killed on his first flight over the lines is something not easily forgotten...

...But the possibility is there, ready to be grasped by a producer of courage and imagination...

...Nor could it, from its very nature, nullify that sense of excitement which nurses the secret fascination of war...

...I have never seen a picture in which the actual sensations of flight are caught more accurately...

...All Quiet on the Western Front was a bit sharper in its irony, more pitiless in its exposures, yet even this picture could not entirely obliterate heroism...

...The Dawn Patrol, by the author of Wings, is still another contribution to the literature of dying bravely...

...There is the same rebellion against war coupled with the same quiet submission to duty and the same bravery in the face of certain death...

...I am inclined to think that this is an entirely premature and unjustified attack...

...As in Journey's End, there are no women in the cast...

...The stories will be built around interesting personalities...

...Comedy will bring its relief to an overstrained audience at just the right moment...

...In presenting such works, where the dramatic action is not held up by the music, the screen could do an enormous service in giving them full and free imaginative settings...

...Melodrama develops before long, and the picture hurries through to a real climax, only to be dumped hard in the denouement by a court room trick...

...On the other hand, there is unquestionably a vast field which the movies have not yet explored—namely, the Wagnerian music dramas and the more robust works such as Boris Godounov and Ivan the Terrible...

...Music and the Movies FOR some reason, there has been considerable excitement lately concerning the alleged failure of the talking screen to do its duty by fine music...

...Its futility, its injustice are forgotten in the hidden worship of action, of heroic deeds and of excitement...

...Wild Company A FOX picture which is by no means as bad as its name, is Wild Company...

...How they manage to crack up and burn up so many planes without actual loss of life is one of those mysteries which only Hollywood can solve...

...The jingoists have little to fear...

...In most cases, the implied purpose of the stories is to show the horror and waste and futility of war...

...They have even forgotten the execrable taste of flaunting themselves before the mothers of a country bled to death—in France where nearly every home was emptied forever of parts of its youth...

...The battle scenes of the air are masterpieces of photography and arrangement...

...The talkies have only just emerged from the experimental stage, yet during the last year I have heard a large number of operatic stars of the first magnitude in the short number and have had the pleasure of listening to both Lawrence Tibbett and John McCormack in full length pictures...

...Once you forget the larger question and accept the war as a fact, it is a picture of high romantic thrill...

...On the other hand, the men themselves go a bit too sloppy on occasions —too much so, that is, to give the authentic feeling of the British Royal Flying Corps...

...We are even now witnessing the departures and arrivals in triumph of groups of Gold Star mothers—women who, instead of going quietly to mourn at the graves of their sons in France, gather on the docks in smiling groups to wave flags and be photographed...

...There is not even a single sentimental reference to women...

...But their every action as a group indicates the desire for the spotlight and for the aura of the heroine...

...Here and there one finds touches of humor, and a bit of that good sportsmanship between enemy fliers which one can charitably call one of the saving graces of the war...

...Whatever small wisp of importance they might claim is bound to come entirely from the actors and directors...

...The sum total of the picture will be appraised by the sensitive standard of the box office and war will remain, what it has been for thousands of years, something which entrances the mob the moment its immediate terror has been moderated or removed...