The New Pictures

The Strange Case of Captain Ramper. The world had decided that Captain Ramper was dead. No word had been heard from him since he left Germany to fly through the Arctic circle. But he was alive and insane in the frozen wilderness; his plane had been forced down and his mechanic had committed suicide after three years of hardships. Twelve more years passed; Captain Ramper's hair grew long, covered his body; he lost the power of articulate speech. Then some fishermen discovered him. They thought that he was a strange breed of polar ape. He was clapped into a cage, taken back to Germany, sold to a dime museum. A Professor Barbazin suspects that there is a human spark beneath the coat of fur, so he buys Captain Ramper. Speech and sanity are restored by shrewd operations; fur is shaved off electrically; and Captain Ramper becomes a man again, a popular hero. But the hurly-burly life of urban man disturbs him so much that he denounces civilization, returns to the Arctic. This film was made by First National Pictures with a German cast. Paul Wegener as Captain Ramper is proficient, though his racoon-skin costume has a collegiate twist. Original, entertaining.

Fazil. Charles Farrell is a capable cinemactor, particularly in the role of an earnest young man. But here he is greased up like the late Rudolph Valentino and made to register Arabian passion under the erogenous name of Prince Fazil. The also warm Greta Nissen, as a Parisian blonde called Fabienne, spends many film feet in his arms and on his lips--be the place Paris or Venice or the desert sands. They get married, quarrel, make up, etc. And finally, DEATH--Prince Fazil, mortally wounded by bandits, takes off his poison ring and lovingly punctures the white finger of Fabienne.

The Drag Net. A city gang leader is on trial for murder. A stoolpigeon takes the stand to testify against him. In a hotel room opposite the courtroom, a man is toying with a golf club; good-naturedly, he steps to the window, picks up a rifle, shoots the stoolpigeon. That is the beginning of a lusty underworld melodrama written by Oliver H. P. Garrett, onetime reporter for the New York World, produced by Paramount, acted by George Bancroft, Evelyn Brent, William Powell.

The Street of Sin. Basher Bill seizes an egg, bashes it against his own forehead, rips off the shell, swallows the nutritious portion whole. He grabs another, and another,--until he has consumed twelve (12) eggs. The eggs are hardboiled; so is Basher Bill as played by Emil ("Slow Motion") Jannings. Paramount's publicity man swears that Mr. Jannings actually ate those twelve eggs. Well, good for him; for there is little else to egg one on in The Street of Sin. Basher Bill lives in the slums of London with a blonde harlot who loves him. His occasional business is thuggery & robbery. But, one day, his eyes light on a Salvation Army lass (Fay Wray) and he soon gives up sin to help her wash slum babies. Comes a police raid; and Basher Bill is shot while trying to protect the babies. As he dies, the Army lass sheds tears of joy because the blonde harlot renounces sin in favor of the Army. Mr. Jannings, ponderous though he is, is capable of better cinema.