The New Pictures

Zaza.--Somebody must have told Gloria Swanson that her acting lacked sufficient animation--just look at what that Pola Negri gets away with. Which is all very true, no doubt, but one wishes it hadn't happened--for in Zaza Gloria fairly tears into infinitesimal pieces everything from the scenery to the plot. Animated? She is as animated as St. Vitus--so animated that she fairly tires the eyes. The story isn't much--another old theatrical warhorse recaparisoned for the bobbed-hair trade. Bernhardt and Mrs. Carter acted in it at one time. They were quieter than Miss Swanson. H. B. Warner is good as Dufresne. There's a chastened ending. Six Days.--Entombed in an abandoned trench, two typically Glynnish lovers undergo marriage, starvation and various other kinds of agony for six days. Close-ups of their suffering faces are at a premium--no one wishing to be mechanically harrowed for the longest possible space of time and then showered with marshmallow when the happy ending arrives should miss it. Dulcy.--Originated in the Owning Tower,-- adapted for the stage by Kaufman and Connelly, and now transferred to the screen, Dulcy must have achieved by now what would doubtless be her highest ambition-- the bromidic eminence of a household byword. Dulcy is beautiful, boobish, and oh-so-well-intentioned. She can club the briskest conversation into insensibility with one slightly garbled proverb--and when she decided that her husband wasn't getting all he deserved from the mean old firm, and gave a weekend party to impress a millionaire crosspatch, and others, with husband's sterling abilities, her insistent wifely propaganda nearly rained her husband's business career for keeps. But Providence watches over Dulcys and after amusing contretemps, everything came right in the end. A thoroughly entertaining picture, with Constance Talmadge deserving especial credit for her fine interpretation of the title role.

-- Comic column of The New York World, conducted by F. P. A. (Franklin Hence Adams).