The New Pictures

Triumph. This screen version of May Edington's novel is scarcely a triumph for Cecil B. De Mille, the man who put the Ten Commandments on a paying basis. Its lesson is that a man, like the tin cans which the spoiled youth in this case manufactures, must have some of the shine rubbed off before he is of any value. Both the moral and the treatment of the story seem forced, moving in jerks --far less smoothly than the can factory which in this case is the temple of histrionic art. Here a young wastrel is toppled from his presidential perch by his dead father's will, while an unrecognized and presumably bastard brother who has been manager of the plant is exalted to the post of arbiter of the tin can destinies of America. Then the cinema reveals strikingly how wealth goes to the head of the former anarchist who has been preaching division of property, while poverty regenerates the waster (Rod La Rocque). Mingled with this is the love of the two brothers for the factory girl who becomes a fame'd Parisian opera singer, largely, it would seem, through having Leatrice Joy's charming face. Miss Joy brings an air of solidity and veracity to this role, but it is preposterous that after losing her voice in a casual fire, she should go back to labelling containers at the dear old plant. Miss Joy does better in exotic roles, not in this canned drama. Girl Shy. This is not only the funniest picture that Harold Lloyd has done, but pretty nearly the funniest that anybody anywhere has done, including all of California. Harold has combined comedy, romance, melodrama and speed--speed that makes a Ben Hur chariot race look like a subway local. Its basis is characteristically dealing with the efforts of a bashful apprentice tailor to win a wealthy girl and also literary fame, with a book about lovemaking. On this foundation Harold has built up a series of overwhelmingly hilarious episodes, particularly with the various equipages in which he frantically strives to stop the fatal wedding of his girl in time, while traffic laws and the universe in general reels. Harold is not so humorously subtle as Charles S. Chaplin. But nowadays he is snappier, and he knows how to build a situation till the laughs crackle.