The New Pictures

My Man. Caveman methods mingle with cigars and red roses to make an unconvincing picture of a political boss. He seems to imagine he can browbeat a girl into marrying him in the same way his henchmen intimidate voters at the polls. In the last six seconds she decides she likes it. The need for a quick finish to the picture seems to be the deciding factor. Until then she had merely tolerated his attentions, which included three carloads of roses, one large display of fireworks for her birthday party, season tickets for her guests to baseball and the opera. It's a small town where they probably don't have opera, but the intent is good. The boss is determined to win her away from a rotter, and does, though the wisdom of the exchange is doubtful. Dustin Farnum is the boss with the golden heart and leather neck.

The Next Corner. A young American wife (Dorothy Mackaill) whose husband (Conway Tearle) is in Argentina finds that castles in Spain are dangerous places for dalliance. The Spaniard (Ricardo Cortez) who entices her to one, is shot as the betrayer of another girl. Thereupon she decides she really loves her absent husband. Flying to Argentina, she is pursued all the way by the dead man's valet (Lon Chaney) who also practises love-making with her. To gain his ends, he waves an incriminating letter over her for reel after reel. She wears herself and the audience out debating whether to destroy the letter. In the end, husband opens it and forgives everything very firmly. So the picture might just as well not have been.

Daddies. As many chuckles as there are children. The story is negligible, churning out farce and romance by turns arbitrarily. It can be summed up thus: Five bachelors who adopt eight war orphans--one of them a grown girl (Mae Marsh)-- are equal to one love affair, plus a dozen spankings. This being the era of the child on the screen, audiences laugh incessantly at the bumptious brats before licking their own.

The Yankee Consul. The screen version of Raymond Hitchcock's musical comedy coyly shies away from a plot most of the time. This permits the insertion of many comic scenes of the Mack Sennett breed. But in the end you can watch the young American (Douglas MacLean), posing as the consul to Rio de Janeira, rescue the necessary senorita (Patsy Ruth Miller).