New Pictures

Bigger than Barnum's (Ralph Lewis-Viola Dana). The story has probably been told before of the tight-rope walker who displayed his talent in private life and rescued a beleaguered heroine. This particular walker walked a telegraph wire into a burning building to complete the rescue. Previously he had refused to perform a certain difficult stunt in the circus and was branded a coward. The circus scenes are fair, the climax exciting, and the whole picture dangerously close to average.

Men of Steel (Milton Sills-Doris Kenyon). The pictorial possibilities of the steel mills are boldly seized upon by this endeavor and frittered away on a silly story. Mr. Sills plays a worker who assumes the blame for a murder, committed by the girl he loves. He escapes to the East and takes up his trade in other mills. The story follows him. The blistering scenery of steel manufacture surrounds the slothful narrative impressively. Perhaps the story might be eliminated and the remains be used for a two-reel educational.

The Two-Gun Man (Fred Thomson). The newest star of the open spaces has a great horse and a terrible sense of plot. He is employed in an old-fashioned howler about the gang of desperadoes trying to do the old father out of his ranch. The young son comes back from the war, congressional medal and all, just in time. There is also a girl and a beautiful white horse. The latter is good enough even to make Tom Mix's Tony jealous.

Mantrap. Sinclair Lewis may refuse the Pulitzer Prize but he does not object to the butchery of his literature in pictures. It is to be supposed that Mr. Lewis contrived his latest story with some care and regards it with some pride. In the movies it comes out as just one more of those dull afternoons. The story tells of a lawyer in a lonely north woods town. He engages in a flirtation with a lovely lady who has once been a manicurist in Minneapolis but is now the wife of one of the best inhabitants of Mantrap. Percy Marmont, always a good actor if a trifle melancholy, helps immensely.