Cinema: The New Pictures Dec. 10, 1923

This Freedom. Recalling William Fox’s excellent screen translation of If Winter Comes, one is induced to hope for similar treatment of the later novel by A. S. M. Hutchinson. Mr. Fox was unhappily hanicapped. The novel is largely theoretical. It conducts a polemic on the respective values for women of children or a career. Mr. Hutchinson loves children. He does it with literary conviction. His characters’ reactions are largely psychological and therefore too often static on the screen.

Long Live the King. It is becoming the fixed opinion of a large proportion of the population that Jackie Coogan is the one public character whom America cannot afford to lose. Each time he reappears in a new film the adjective army passes jauntily before the cinema reviewers and is detailed en masse to support the Coogan picture. This army is at present on the march. With the possible exception of Oliver Twist, Long Live the King (from a novel by Mary Roberts Rinehart) is the best thing Jackie has done. He plays the tiny Crown Prince of a European Principality who is captured by anarchists. It is his first massive production. At no time does he let pompous detail deaden his invincible vitality.

In the Palace of the King. This slice of the cinema Outline of History takes the spectator for a protracted visit to Spain in the 16th Century. To afford opportunity for a vast and valuable display of costumes, helmets and architecture, a love story with familiar portions of jealousy and strife is unwound. Pictorially the production is excellent; as narrative it is dull. Blanche Sweet and Edmund Lowe make personable protagonists.

Tiger Rose. Ulric addicts will derive a curious mixture of sensations from this picture. The rare and radiant Lenore, whose wiry wickedness David Belasco has always turned to virtue just before the final curtain, has undergone a metamorphosis. Both her personality and appearance seem altered. She is still a good actress but Kiki no more. The play, many will remember, is No. 9,824 in the Canadian Royal Northwest Mounted Police stories. They always get their audience.

The Virginian. Kenneth Harlan is considerably less a ham than was the hero of Wister’s novel. The backgrounds are wonders of nature.