The New Pictures

The Cardboard Lover. A public which votes a straight ticket because its father did, a public which sang "Yes, We Have No Bananas," which litters the countryside with picnic debris, has taken to Marion Davies. She appeared in Manhattan last week in something about a man who, wanting to make his sweetheart jealous, employed a cardboard lover. The cinema reverses the plot of Her Cardboard Lover (Jeanne Eagels).

The Air Circus. Two significant features of this piece: it is aeronautical but has nothing to do with the 1914-18 shellfire; its cast includes Louise Dresser, who was in two Manhattan cinema openings last week (see A Ship Comes In.) Miss Dresser may be depended upon when she assumes a mother role. She looks not unlike Irene Rich and shares with her the distinction of most able protagonist of domesticity among cinemactresses. As the mother of Buddy Blake, aviator-aspirant, Louise Dresser is properly maternal when her son fails to pass a test, is properly proud when he does pass as a hero.

A Ship Comes In. A Serbian student in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia, fired a pistol 14 years ago. Nearly everything that has been produced in letters since then has re-echoed the barking of that pistol. So too has nearly everything in the cinema. No exception is this story of an immigrant who, unjustly imprisoned, is released only to find that his son has been overwhelmed in the big noise of 1914-18. Rudolph Schildkraut is languid as the immigrant. This is one of two pictures in which able Louise Dresser gives simultaneous, current Manhattan performances.

The Water Hole. As every cinemaddict knows, one of the sure-fire plots is the one about the vivacious, vampy heiress who is kidnaped by either a cowboy or an engineer who wants to tame the shrew. This time it (Jack Holt) is an engineer, though neither rod, bob nor transit appears in the Arizona locale. He abducts Judith (Nancy Carroll) because she won a bet with her cronies that she could make Engineer Randolph propose in a week. Hidden behind a window are the losing cronies who at the proper moment expose themselves, causing prodigious embarrassment to the engineer. The abduction, done in a spirit of fun and platonically, comes close to Serious Consequences when a half-breed steals both abductor's and abductee's horses in the desert. Thanks to Judith's habit of daily ablution, the water supply at that juncture amounts to half-a-canteen-full. When abductor, abductee and a young would-be rescuer reach the nearest water-hole, following a 20-mile drag over the hot sands, they find the water-hole has gone dry.

Action thenceforth is rapid, confusingly quick compared with the lagging up to that time. The director seemed as willing as the audience to call a halt. The cinema has been adapted from Zane Grey's piece identically named.