The New Pictures

The Spoilers. There are a great many who believe that the movies should remain out of doors where the huts are far apart and the male inhabitants are blooded stock. Subscribers to this school of thought will thoroughly enjoy The Spoilers. It is concerned with the Alaskan gold rush and the love of a dance-hall girl. There is much hard riding, hard fighting, hard language. A crooked faro dealer and a good job in dam dynamiting add final fury to the flames of melodrama. Milton Sills plays the hero with desperate determination. There is much sincere savagery distributed among the several villains, while Anna Q. Nilsson, with her hardened, twisting mouth, is good as the dance-hall girl.

Bluebeard's Eighth Wife. Gloria Swanson had something in the matter of plot to work upon when she plunged into this picture. Accordingly she emerged with a good performance to her credit.

Upon marrying an American millionaire she discovers he has seven divorced wives. Under the circumstances she postpones the honeymoon until he can establish the stability of his eighth amour. This he succeeds in doing after several moderately diverting reels of compromising situations.

Little Old New York. With a pounding of drums and shrill cries of the ballyhoo herald sounding more loudly than ever when motion picture was heralded before, this latest product from the laboratories of William Randolph Hearst arrived in New York. A theatre was purchased and redecorated at an expense of hundreds of thousands. A huge list of names was amassed for the opening night--social celebrities, famous figures of the stage, sporting men and women, beauties, politicians. Victor Herbert conducted the orchestra.

A very singular thing thereupon took place. The picture lived up to, indeed exceeded, the golden frame of publicity prepared.

The story is all in tight trousers and tall hats--the curiously attractive garb of a century ago. Patricia O'Day comes to Manhattan from Ireland. En voyage she is forced to discard female finery and gear herself out in the clothing of a boy. The rest of her adventures transpire amid the rarefied air of high society and the heavier atmosphere of the lowest stratum during the days when the city structures had not begun to scrape the sky.

Out of the shadows of the past a scenery city has been reared which is a marvel of accurate detail. The city, the customs, the clothes, the personages are on parade. Cornelius Vanderbilt, Henry Brevoort, John Jacob Astor look from the screen at their descendants in the audience. The climax comes when a reconstructed Robert Fulton steams away upon its memorable trial trip, which is to sweep the seas of sailing ships.

Ripples of humor, snatches of sentiment are shrewdly set off against two scenes of primitive brutality: 1) a bare-knuckle fight between The Hoboken Terror and Bully Boy Brewster; 2) a whipping post episode where Patricia, under the curling lash, breaks down and repudiates her masculine pretense.

The most startling feature of the occasion is the sudden blossoming of Marion Davies. Hitherto she has been simply a pretty girl surrounded by expensive actors, well trained mobs and a king's ransom in scenery. Her pictures have been effective because this heavy frosting concealed the unsubstantial cake beneath. No one, except Mr. Hearst's critics, ever accused her of being an actress. In Little Old New York she turns the tables. She reveals a sense of com- edy and a pathetic touch which quite took the critical first night audience by storm.

The New York World: "Here is something very near to great."

Robert Sherwood: "Miss Davies excellent ... a thoroughly pleasing picture."

Mayor Hylan of New York: "Unquestionably the greatest screen epic I have ever looked upon and Marion Davies is the most versatile screen star ever cast in any part--the wide range of her stellar acting is something to marvel at."

Heywood Broun: "Really a pretty good picture."

Circus Days. "I ran away from home," Jackie Coogan might say in unraveling the plot of his latest effort "'cause mother (Jackie speaks excellent English and would not say 'muvver') and I didn't have any money. I ran away 'cause the circus man offered me a dollar a week to sell lemonade. He was a pretty mean old boss, but I worked pretty hard and sent a dollar home every Sunday. Then one night one of the performers got sick. Who was it, you say? -- well --ah -- er -- oh, just a little kid named Peaches Jackson--and I dressed up in her ballet skirt and did her act. Then the boss of the whole show came running out to me:

"'Who are you?' he said.

"'I'm the lemonade kid,' I said.

"' Well, how would you like to work for me? I'll give you $75 a week,' he said.

"'Fine,' I said.

"Then I went home to see mother and gave her all the money she wanted.

"What's that you say? Did I go alone? No, I guess I didn't. Say, though, you're awful inquisitive.

"What did I bring home with me ? Oh -- er -- er -- ah, just a little kid named Peaches Jackson."