The New Pictures

Trilby. Inspection of this film makes one wonder why the movies are not convicted as a public nuisance. The producers have taken Du Maurier's story (which is not far from the fringes of the classics) and, wringing its neck, have served the dead body. The semblance of Trilby remains -- but spiritless.

They have entirely lost the great psychological crisis of the book where Trilby's love for Little Billee awakens in her for the first time the shame of her life among the Bohemians of Paris. They have lost, almost as completely, the dramatic crisis where the operatic sensation of Europe steps upon the Drury Lane stage to be recognized by Little Billee as the Trilby of long ago. They have retained Svengali's whiskers and some of the Parisian atmosphere.

Andree Lafayette, the latest in screen stars from Paris, is cast for the title rele.

The Purple Highway. Madge Kennedy was meant for greater things. She struggles to render convincing the story of a poor little girl who, rushing into a musical comedy lead, wins fame and a husband. Struggling manfully at her side are Pedro de Cordoba and Monte Blue. But it's no go. The plot is too much for the three of them.

Broadway Gold. Broadway is pictured as " the gilded boulevard, the jewelled magnet." Elaine Hammerstein plays the chorus girl who steps in the Broadway mud over her shoe-tops. Elliott Dexter does the rescue work. Glittering junk!

Hollywood. The picture people are becoming introspective. Some months ago they fashioned Souls for Sale out of the services of 50 stars; here is Hollywood with 50 more.

Hollywood rattles along about the difficulties of breaking into the movies. Venturing westward to this cinema Constantinople comes a young and beautiful maiden (shot of a young and beautiful maiden wandering past "Pickfair," the Pickford-Fairbanks residence, with Doug and Mary chatting on the porch). She drifts into Hollywood hotels (shot of Charlie Chaplin buying a cigar). She tries to get a job (shots of William S. Hart, Pola Negri, Thomas Meighan, Bryant Washburn).

Then something startling should have happened like " she got the job " story. It didn't. She got no job.

There's a moral somewhere. But it is fairly difficult to worry about plots and morals when Agnes Ayres, Mary Astor, Leatrice Joy and Ben Turpin are thrown in simply for atmosphere.

Homeward Bound. Here is an excellent example of harmless diversion. The producer has selected a heavy-weather sea story, relieved it with stray breaks of sunlight in the form of love and comedy, given it over to the able playing of Thomas Meighan and Lila Lee.

Meighan is a first mate on the Brent Line. Miss Lee is the daughter of the House of Brent. After a secret marriage to the mate she stows herself away on a leaky old three-master which he must take to San Domingo. Father Brent follows furiously after in his private yacht. A hurricane breaks -- one of the heaviest of the present picture season. But God saves the poor sailors, and father Brent takes his new son-in-law into the firm.