Cinema: The New Pictures Sep. 29, 1924

Feet of Clay. When Cecil de Mille and his friends get whirling around “society’s playground,” the unfortunate observer can fortify himself with only one reflection. He is watching motion pictures at their worst. Probably Mr. de Mille would reply that he knows his is a dime novel edition of the social register but that is what the people want. If the people want it, they certainly get it in the first part of Feet of Clay. By the time the characters slip into purgatory, society’s playground is ploughed for miles around by the difficulties encountered by a woman in selecting one husband from two suitors. Somebody thereupon dies; and the story moves over into “another world.” From this point forward, matters improve; and the improvement is in no small part due to ideas originally sketched to the world at large by Sutton Vane in Outward Bound.

Captain Blood. Sabatini, it seems, is God’s gift to the silent drama. He is a glutton for Romance, leading the present field of doublet-and-hose designers by several hundred thousand copies. He is so good at this sort of thing that his yarns must inevitably make sturdy cinema matter. Captain Blood is another pirate argosy. A young Irish physician embroils himself with King James and is sold into slavery to a West Indian planter. While pirates are looting the town, he leads a sortie of slaves, out-pirates the pirates, and sails away to become a buccaneer in his own right. The lovely Arabella, niece of the planter, thereupon turns against him, and there is considerable dramatic dredging to be done before the course of true love again runs smooth. Warren Kerrigan buckles and swashes diligently in the title part to excellent effect. Jean Paige is a distinct optical advantage. The explosion of a pirate galleon is the most engrossing single shock.