The New Pictures

Smouldering Fires. Emotional acting is not regarded with the same reverence as it used to be. The beaten breast, the torn hair, the dripping tear are too often signs of antiquity. Pauline Frederick is one of its chief disciples now remaining and it must be said that she does much for its survival. In the present outburst, she is a business woman, no longer young, who marries a young man in her employ. The youth, it evolves, is really in love with her young sister. The opportunity for a grand renunciation scene is not overlooked. An excellent, if slightly oldfashioned, performance.

Waking Up the Town. A story circulated recently to the effect that Norma Shearer has signed a long contract with Goldwyn which will eventually net her $1,000 a day. Miss Shearer is a fairly good actress; but if she is worth $1,000 a day. ... In this adventure, she cooperates with Jack Pickford in the construction of a power plant for the citizens of Rainbow Falls. There is at one point a fairly ingenious sequence stolen from the recent end-of-the-world scare.

The Way of a Girl. When they finished this picture at the Metro- Goldwyn-Mayer studios, it was terrible. A visiting newspaperman from Manhattan (one Laurence Stallings) took a look, made a suggestion. That suggestion made The Way of a Girl one of the best cinema satires ever produced. It was a melodrama at first. They cut it into about 100 pieces, inserted an author at work, his characters in conference around his typewriter, their decisions, bloody subtitles. You'll have to laugh, particularly when you think that it might have appeared before you as melodrama unadorned.

Men and Women. It is not often that this department grows actively angry and recommends sudden death. Men and Women is so bad that the Famous Players headsman ought to decapitate someone. It is the ancient tale of the honest bank cashier, temptation, stolen bonds.

School for Wives. Leonard Merrick wrote a novel called The House of Lynch. Stripped of Mr. Merrick's literary insulation, the wires of the plot seem a bit bare and shiny. Struggling artist, rich wife. He won't take her money; she goes home to papa. She is lonely; gives away her money, returns to struggling artist.