The New Pictures

The Woman Disputed. In its first scenes this picture gave promise of becoming one of those compact, dreary dramas of the European underworld that have been done so effectively by UFA and Sovkino. Instead, the drama of its one genuine situation--a harlot (Norma Talmadge) suspected of the murder of a suicide--is ignored in favor of a series of patently unreal and cinematic developments in which the lady, reformed, is called upon to perform for the sake of her country an act which patriotism unconvincingly transforms from a two-rouble incident to a Holy Sacrifice.

On Trial. The Warner Brothers' Vitaphone gets a thorough trial in this oldtime courtroom melodrama by Elmer Rice. The verdict: well cast, well talked, well acted, but with a few awkward pauses. The action consists entirely of courtroom testimony with flashbacks to show the events leading up to the murder. It is gradually revealed that Husband No. 1 was justified in killing Husband No. 2, because Husband No. 2 had treated the wife of Husband No. 1 in a dastardly manner. Best shot: a sleepy judge. Best acting: 44-year-old Pauline Frederick and 8-year-old Vondell Darr.

His Private Life. Faced with the problem of creating another vehicle for the graceful and faintly pensive urbanity of Adolphe Menjou, Ernest Vajda and Director Frank Tuttle got together on a story, or rather that story about the Parisian who is so tired of women that he is expressing his weariness in an epigrammatic speech when--what do you think?--a beautiful pair of legs goes by. The pursuit, tailored with a good deal of deft comic detail, leads in and out of bedrooms and round and round a jealous husband until, at Kathryn Carver's request, a waiter removes a pot of flowers to expose, on the other side of the table, the lovelorn face of Mr. Menjou. At this point you are conscious that you have been fairly well entertained though by no means as well as in some other Menjou-Vajda stories.