The New Pictures

The Famous Mrs. Pair. Adapted from the play by James Forbes, and, on the whole, well-adapted, except near the finish. There the customary race between the midnight express and the speeding automobile just had to come in, to be followed by the customary fisticuffs in the hotel-room between the well-manicured villyun and the simple but hearty brother of the ingenue.

The Fairs had a happy home till Mrs. Fair became a war-heroine. Then Mrs. Fair decided that woman's place was on the lecture platform and departed on a $30,000 tour of the country, leaving Husband to be consoled by a distressingly vivacious widow, Son to marry a poor but virtuous hello-girl, and Daughter to fall into the clutches of nicotine, complexion-clay and her mother's manager. But everything came out happily at last. The cast is pretty adequate, though not exciting--the direction and detail good.

The Bright Shawl. Another adaptation, this time from Hergesheimer's novel of conspiracy and abortive rebellion in the Cuba of 1850. Colorfully produced, with incidents of beauty, it yet misses genuine impressiveness --partly, perhaps, because Dorothy Gish, as the Spanish dancer, le Clavel, seems pitifully miscast. She does her very best with it, but the role simply does not fit her. Richard Barthelmess, as the adventurous young American dandy-hero, is better but not wholly successful. A word should be said in favor of Jetta Gondal who portrays a scintillating Chinese vamp and Anders Randolph as a sinister Spanish captain. The direction is intelligent, the supporting cast splendid and the picture, in general, well worth seeing--what it lacks is a couple of drops of genius--and that is no uncommon lack.

You Can't Fool Your Wife. A banal triangle-story of "fashionable society" produced in the usual deluxe, ooze-leather edition way. The chief characters rejoice in enormous stucco palaces--there is a pervasive flavor of butlers, Rolls-Royces and The Book of Etiquette about it all. A bathing revel occurs at Miami in which all the guests have taken the wise precaution of substituting swimming gear for the more usual undies. The subtitles suit the picture--they are, most of them, of the "When came the dawnlight" school.