Cinema: The New Pictures May 28, 1928

Tempest. The face of John Barrymore is, no doubt, a handsome one. His bare shoulders also have a certain attraction. Observers of Tempest are not allowed to forget these facts, which occupy an inexcusably large amount of the film’s footage. So, it is no wonder that the reputedly “gripping” action drags. Mr. Barrymore is Sergeant Ivan Markov, of peasant birth, who attains a lieutenant’s commission in the Russian army by hard work and through the influence of a kindly general (George Fawcett). Ivan worships the general’s haughty daughter (Camilla Horn), but she treats him as peasant swine. One night, he accidentally falls asleep in her boudoir and is degraded and cast into prison for his ungentlemanly mistake. The prison gives Mr. Barrymore an opportunity to put on the grease paints and a beard, to look horribly woebegone. The Red Revolution releases him from prison and he becomes a peasant dictator. He refuses to be a party to the execution of the haughty daughter, runs away with her to the Austrian frontier, while the audience discovers that she loved him all along. … All of which goes to show that Mr. Barrymore’s stage reputation is being stunted by his film capers. Louis Wolheim, famed in the play, What Price Glory, also figures in Tempest as a fun-loving Russian sergeant.

Ramona. Lo, the poor half-Indian, pity her. Her loving husband, a full Indian, is maltreated by the whites in California in the days of ’49. Her baby dies because the white physicians will have nothing to do with her. White bandits shoot up her village, kill her Indian friends and her husband. She wanders in the wild woods, brokenhearted. Thus, the popular novel of Helen Hunt Jackson as screened by United Artists. Dolores Del Rio, always throbbing, is at her best.

Hangman’s House. An authentic Irish flavor, a grand horse race and a Citizen Hogan (Victor McLaglen) who says: “You’ll have to excuse me for a while, as I’ve got a man to kill,” are refreshing in the film version of Donn Byrne’s fine novel.

Steamboat Bill Jr. Buster Keaton is a thimble-witted college boy. His father (Ernest Torrence) tries to make him a skipper on a muddy river. They reach a climax in a cyclone. Distinctly not funny.