The New Pictures

The Silent Command. If any private citizen marched up to President Coolidge and said: "I beg your pardon, but could you lend me the U. S. Navy for a few days ?" the President would probably smile nervously and talk about the" big, pretty boats "until a squad of marines had started the visitor off to lunacy lodgings.

William Fox is still at large, and deservedly, after asking virtually this very question. He asked and it was given unto him--not only the Navy but Annapolis and most of the Panama Canal. With these substantial properties he set out to strike a smashing blow for patriotism. Though normal Americans dislike to see the flag dragged through the dust of a theatrical property room, it must be said that Mr. Fox has done a good job. No better bit of marine spectacle has been seen in many months than the stormy climax of this film.

The French Doll. Mae Murray is an American with beautiful ankles, vacant eyes, trifling talent. The ankles are the only convincing feature of her latest picture. In trying to be French she succeeds simply in bubbling over. It is to be noted that she wears an infinite selection of Paris gowns, which afford high excitement throughout the film for the feminine portion of the assemblage.

Salomy Jane. Once more the West has come forward with material for a two-gun terror. The days of '49 are here revealed with the normal amount of shooting, horse-stealing, hanging. Lefty Flynn (quondam Yale fullback) and Jacqueline Logan are the individuals who live through it all to marry. Of its kind the picture is acceptable.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame. This picture is a legitimate example of movie elephantiasis. It required, apparently, millions of horses, ten millions of men; it required the construction in Hollywood of Notre Dame Cathedral plus a large section of old Paris. All this was done on the Gargantuan scale of which only cinema directors can conceive. All this would have been futile, as it so often is with spectacle productions, if the story had not furnished it with backbone and if Lou Chaney had not provided a singularly fine performance in the title role. The combination affords massive and effective entertainment.

The producers have edged a little farther along the trail of terror than any of their predecessors. It seems that fearful brutality as an emotional seasoning eludes the censor's shears. The whipping scene in Little Old New York and bits of Ashes of Vengeance were tepid samples in the face of the writhing, twisting and gnashings of Quasimodo, the hunchback. He is finally flogged with metal tipped lashes. These things appeal enormously to the cinema population.

It must be said for the benefit of Hugo addicts that the plot is sacrificed for the sake of a happy ending. This sacrifice seems reasonable in view of the preponderance of movie addicts over Hugo addicts.

Why Worry? Followers of Harold Lloyd will be pleased to know that he has a new giant. The big fellow's name is Johan Aasen and so gigantic is his structure that a lady's wrist watch fits neatly about his thumb. In a somnolent Mexican faubourg Harold puts his ludicrous feet "into it," right, then left, with the usual political consequences soldiers, rifles, prison. The colossus (with a mastodonian toothache) is in the same prison. For relieving the toothache Harold gets his prison walls pushed gently asunder and the local militia strewn helplessly about the courtyard. A swift-moving vehicle of the Lloyd genre that, in spite of its giant, does not quite measure up.