Cinema: The New Pictures May 21, 1928

Honor Bound. A southern woman (Estelle Taylor, also known as Mrs. Jack Dempsey) shoots her first husband and allows honorable John Ogletree (George O’Brien) to go to prison for manslaughter. She marries again, persuades her second husband to use honorable Convict Ogletree as a chauffeur. One fine evening, she makes advances to honorable Chauffeur Ogletree; but he repulses her and wrecks the automobile while doing so. She is injured; her husband suspects honorable Wrecker Ogletree, sends him back to prison to labor and be flogged. In the end, honorable Hero Ogletree finds a virtuous nurse and Mrs. Jack Dempsey flogs her film husband.

The Escape. The big city is where men drink raw liquids, where women are ruined, where everybody comes to a bitter end in a little black box. But the hero (William Russell) and the heroine (Virginia Valli), after typical experiences in a night club, escape just in time to the country.

A Night of Mystery. Those who knew Adolphe Menjou when he was a waiter in a Cleveland chop house were not surprised when the movies “discovered” him. He was the suavest man that ever picked up a 25¢ tip. His way of wearing a cigaret or a dress suit brought him almost instant cinema fame. Two years ago, his entertainment was impeccable. Since then his expression has taken on a tired, wooden, what-does-it-matter manner. In his latest film, A Night of Mystery, adapted from Victorien Sardou’s Ferreol, he puts on the silken cloak of a gallant French officer as yawningly as a dull waiter ties a greasy apron around his belly. Mr. Menjou as Captain Ferreol is confronted with a tough problem: he must either reveal his onetime relations with a lady whom he had loved illicitly or allow the brother of his own fiancee to be hanged for a murder of which the boy is innocent. Taking the only way out, Captain Ferreol says he did the murder. The judge does not believe him; and the past is about to be revealed when the real murderer (a dark, burly gamekeeper, played ably by Raoul Paoli) accidently confesses in a dramatic finish.

Partners in Crime. Wallace Beery, stupid sleuth, is told to “go and make a down payment on a brain, as everybody else has one.” Raymond Hatton, sometimes a scampering reporter and sometimes a knife-wielding gangster, is the cause of Mr. Beery’s bewilderment. There are funnier things in the world than mistaken identity, but they are not present in this film.

The Blue Danube. A nobleman refusesto marry a rich brewer’s daughter, while he woos a poor innkeeper’s daughter (Leatrice Joy), while an unloved hunchback (Joseph Schildkraut) stabs himself, while the captions say over & over: “Always remember that as long as the Danube flows, I shall love you.” Nicely filmed and dull.