The New Pictures

Empty Hands. Readers of the novel by Arthur Stringer, from which this film was fashioned, hold that its chief interest lies in the development of the devices by which the man and the woman existed and finally made themselves comfortable in a hidden wilderness. When they arrived, via a gorge of rapids, the woman had no standard equipment at all (her bathing suit had been torn off by the torrent's claws) and the man had only a coat, trousers, undershirt and a hunting knife. Before the rescue, a good many weeks later, they were living in a log bungalow with a full line of cooking utensils, clothes and toilet articles. Manufacture of these things did not interest the producers (quite properly). They were forced for reasons of dramatic necessity to stress the wickedness of the young lady (Norma Shearer) before she reached the purifying atmosphere of loneliness. Indeed, if her mother's ghost had not walked at just the right moment, she might have run off with a married man. Instead, her father whisked her away to the open spaces, where a heartily disapproving young engineer (Jack Holt) went to her rescue down the rapids. The opening phases of the film are struck off with the old rubber stamp. There was even the midnight bathing-party, at which everyone got drunk and hurled the fat guest into the pool for comedy. But comedy ceased when the man and the woman were hurled into the canyon rapids. From that point forth, the adventure gained in entertainment values.

Fools in the Dark. Every now and then some producer reaches the absolute end of his dramatic rope and decides to make a melodrama on the theory that old things are best. Accordingly, he stirs up daggers, skeletons, an avalanche, death traps, mystery yachts, a Hindu villain, an airplane rescue. In the present instance, a death ray was included to give that natty modern touch. No matter how often you have been to the cinemas, the incoherent multitude of these manufactured thrills serves a sure purpose. There is an inevitable, if factitious, reaction. Matt Moore and Patsy Ruth Miller assist materially in making the discerning spectators feel like fools in the dark for enjoying such arrant debris.