The Play and Screen

...But she was more of a Viking woman then—when merely creating the luminous shadow—than in the direct representation of the present play...

...I said recently in this department that the future of the screen lay in doing certain things which the stage can never do—and conversely, that the stage should specialize in qualities and subtleties which the screen cannot catch...

...But if the people themselves do not seem real—that is, if the play is awkward, or its lines and minor situations break the illusion —then an interesting theme by itself is worthless...

...The Arizona Kid BACK to "westerns...

...But the freedom of the screen permits following the action wherever it goes...

...The amusing part of the situation is that screen dialogue, even in westerns, is proving to be rather more expert and concise than in the general run of plays of similar type...

...Well—why not...

...Incidentally, Bernice Claire as the heroine turns out to be a sort of feminine Dennis King, surcharged with vitality and directness of attack, gifted with a delightful and spirited voice and a mobile and interesting face...

...Theoretically, the role of Hjordis is one cut to order for Blanche Yurka—the star of Mr...

...Most work-a-day plays suffer from padding and insufficient action...

...If this is true, it means that every time the screen undertakes a straight modern narrative, it is in direct competition with the stage and must do superlatively well to justify itself...

...Time must elapse to permit certain off-stage events, and that time is filled in with inconsequential dribble...

...There are also scenes of harvest festival in isolated estates of southern Russia with native dances and music...

...Through the pageant and the flames of revolution runs the story of the individuals, Aniuta and her Prince Volodya, Konstantin, the revolutionary leader, and his Natasha...

...But the very mechanics of the screen—the necessity, above all, of economy of time—have brought about a prevailing terseness which mediocre plays can never boast...

...It offers a stirring picture of the early days of the Russian revolution, during which (supposedly) the song of a young peasant girl, known as "the Flame," does as much to stir up the populace as the first singing of the Marseillaise in France, 140 years ago...

...She suggested, as the drably dressed keeper of a lighthouse, all the hypnotic glamour of the sea and the atavism of a race born to ride upon it...

...They keep a single and limited viewpoint—beyond which all is mystery...

...The Benson Murder Case does not lend itself well to screening...

...The value of the theme is in supplying an interesting situation for interesting people...

...The Vikings is a good example of strong theme material handled without the sure technique which might give it the illusion of life...

...The result, though frequently lacking in distinction, is at least pointed, brief and logical...

...To appreciate how far dialogue has advanced the calibre of screen stories, I suggest a back glance at several of the old westerns, followed by a view of The Arizona Kid...

...The advent of dialogue has done more than refurbish the glitter of many fading stars...

...May 28, 1930 THE COMMONWEAL 109 THE PLAY AND SCREEN By RICHARD DANA SKINNER Ibsen's Vikings YOUR most confirmed Ibsenite will probably admit that The Vikings is better in idea than in construction...

...But the stilted first act breaks the back of the evening...

...Alan Crosland's handling of the mob scenes and mass action in Song of the Flame is something to stir not only the highest praise but also the imagination...

...The cause of this is usually the need of bringing all events within the confines of one or two sets...

...At the Warner Brothers' Theatre...

...Themes, or situations, are essential to a fine play...

...Incidentally, Warner Baxter and Mona Maris make a good romantic pair almost anywhere under western skies...

...Except in individual scenes, it is hollow and artificial, needlessly complicated in its plot, awkward in its exposition, and, in this translation lacking fiery beauty in its language...

...The beauty of individual lines will not of itself carry conviction nor compel interest...

...It was written by a young Ibsen, not yet inflamed against the social conditions of his own time—not, at least, to the point of writing exclusively about them—and apparently much enamored of Norse legends and heroic proportions...

...Much that is tiresome exposition in this play could be turned into thrilling narrative on the screen...

...If the Ibsenites will take the suggestion in good part, it seems to me that The Vikings would make excellent material for a highly imaginative motion picture...

...They emerge the stronger for the treatment...

...The result is a rather flat and even boring series of episodes...

...This, in turn, cuts out the need for much explanatory and descriptive dialogue, and demands only dialogue which advances the action or reveals the characters...

...Everything within reason has been done to lend atmosphere and visual illusion...

...In such an atmosphere, the tragedy of Hjordis and Sigurd would take on altogether different proportions...

...As in France, the revolution far outruns the ideals of those who started it, and before long, Aniuta ("the Flame") finds herself a suspect and struggling for the life of the young prince who once ruled her section of Russia...

...It illustrates a point I have been stressing considerably of late—namely, that the screen can do a better job in re-creating history, or historical atmosphere, than the stage...

...Herndon's revival...

...It is one of those occasional and unhappy ironies of the theatre...

...Hjordis of The Vikings is just such a character, thwarted in her love-life, and taking out the stored-up energy of her repressions in destructive violence and incitation to bloodshed...

...If the screen ever attempts a story of Joan of Arc, I hope the powers-that-be will have the good sense to give Miss Claire the role of the immortal maid...

...Song of the Flame AS A color-screen version of an operetta, Song of the Flame runs a close second to The Vagabond King in general excellence...

...Fritz Kreisler walking along the street is much like any other man...

...They reveal what the people of the play are really like...

...The play never recovers from that first act, in spite of moments during the second when, with the color organ flashing flames against the timbers of the Norseman's hall, and the tempo of the lighting keeping pace with the action, something of tragic import seems to be brewing...

...I do not think the fault is hers...

...I am all the more certain that it is the play, and not its direction or acting, that is at fault, because of the unusual excellence of the settings, supplemented by amazing light effects on Thomas Wilfrid's clavilux, and the tenseness of the general action after the first act is safely out of the way...

...At the Roxy Theatre...

...There can, of course, be no comparison as yet between even the best screen play and the true masterpieces of the stage in the power and force of dialogue...

...Stories of this sort give full play to the power of the screen in depicting mobs in action, scenes crowded with turbulent humanity numbered in the hundreds and thousands...

...Stage battles (always a trifle ridiculous at best) could be turned into exciting pageants, and off-stage events, such as the revolt of the thralls, could be given the full passion of wild mobs...

...Psychologically, he was much the same Ibsen who later wrote Hedda and The Master Builder—that is, a man deeply preoccupied with the masculine and power-seeking woman, restless and bored under restraint of any kind, and determined to direct and control the deeds of the men about her...

...Alice Gentle is also very effective vocally as Natasha, the cabaret singer...

...It establishes that fatal mood of witnessing people in costume rather than real characters evoked from the past...

...They are more or less timeless, and place makes no essential difference...

...It makes a purely romantic but thoroughly acceptable tale, in which the musical numbers are introduced logically enough to keep the unities...

...In other words, she cannot be much more real than the play itself, and if the play deserts her, through creating no surrounding illusion, then it is no fault of hers if we say—"There goes Miss Yurka in a Viking costume...

...In the theatre one gets absorbed in characters—in men and women—rather than in themes and ideas...

...but Fritz Kreisler continuing a concerto right through to the end, in spite of the fact that his E string has broken under his fingers is a spectacle of genius surmounting a situation...

...In an illfated melodrama of a few years back, known as The Sea Woman, Miss Yurka showed for all time that quality of driving mysticism which vitalizes all Norse folk-lore and lends its women a stature not quite earthly...

...In the mystery play, it is a positive advantage to have a limited number of sets...

...But before they can take life and color on the stage, the surrounding circumstances must be made fully credible...

...Another pleasant surprise comes with the fine bass voice of Noah Beery who, of course, takes the role of the dominant and grafting Konstantin...

...It has also brought a fresh touch to many tried and true forms of movie entertainment by adding to sheer narrative the possibility of more definite characterization...

...The concerted use of detail is staggering...

...The materials are all the same—the small mining town, the "good" bad man, the villainous adventurer and his feminine accomplice, and the faithful native girl...

...It would gather the strength of full illusion and release the power of the characters and their ill-fated love...

...It is the play itself which leaves her standing alone, an isolated character, rather superb, in her force and determination, but a little in the predicament of a fully garbed Shakespearean actor fluttering his Brutus toga along a modern city street...

...The business of keeping the audience in doubt seems much more artificial than in similar circumstances on the stage...

...Such themes have an inherent interest...

...It makes no use of the special possibilities of the screen...

...But instead of tiresome heroics in captions, the characters are now eased along with fairly natural dialogue...

...The Benson Murder Case THIS is a fairly good example of the movies on an off day...

...As in The Vagabond King, there are scenes of wild disorder, of mobs rushing through streets and across the countryside at night, torches flaming, men and women shouting and singing...

...Critics of the modern screen who, in their contempt for "movie mentality," can find no word of praise should spend a few moments in considering the quality of direction shown in some of the spectacle films of recent years...