The New Pictures

The Swan. In the person of Adolphe Menjou naughtiness achieves a grace, a punctilious elegance which may well chagrin the Prince of Darkness himself. In the first scene of this picture Mr. Menjou, Crown Prince of Hungary, is awakened by a fly which alights on the end of his nose and inspires him, while he buttons his tunic, to relate to the officers of his staff an impolite story which is one of the most consummate pieces of pantomime that has ever enriched the cinema. He starts down to breakfast, falls in love with a charming proletarian whom he meets in the hall, lets the Princess to whom he is engaged marry her brother's tutor. To Franz Molnar, author, $50,000 was paid for screen rights -- a graceful benevolence, since Molnar could not by any chance detect in the cinema so much as a plagiarism of his play (The Swan, reviewed in TIME, Nov. 5, 1923). For in the play there was no fly, no impolite story, no charming proletarian, and in the end requirements of realism were so much observed, that the princess parted from the tutor with a cool and formal bow, submitting gracefully to a marriage of convenience. The Swan sang its song before it left the stage for the screen.

Too Many Kisses. To the Basque country came Richard Dix because his father had decided that too many U. S. kisses were not good for him. Nevertheless, by eluding his aged chaperon and smacking an olive- skinned almond-eyed dastard, Hero Dix procured the favors of a Senorita who satisfied him, the observer is persuaded, for the time being, at least. His grotesque antics against the billowy countryside has, unconsciously, the same effect of satire as has a portrait by Artist Zuloaga.

The Lady of the Night is Norma Shearer. She has two roles. First she is Molly, Queen of the Bowery, who loves a struggling inventor. The inventor sells to a group of bankers a device for unlocking unruly safes. One of these bankers has a daughter, Norma Shearer. Norma falls in love with the safe-unlocker. She and Molly, double-exposed, fight it out to an interesting conclusion in a picture which tiptoes around clinches as if they were nightingales' eggs.

The Thundering Herd shows buffalos on the plains of the western U. S., hundreds of thousands of buffalos, all thundering. Where white men live on that noise, building fires of buffalo chips to cook buffalo steaks, love lifts its old song. Zane Grey wrote the book. Eulalie Jennings is the hardened wife of the crooked nomad, Noah Beery. Lois Wilson is an unhappy ward. Jack Holt strides about, looks manly.