The New Pictures

Isn't Life Wonderful? Down the long rank of cinema producers, uniformed in the maddening monotony of platitude and always marking time, one man may now and then be seen to step ahead. David Wark Griffith took his first step forward with The Birth of a Nation when the ranks were straggling and new. Since then he has widened the margin of his advance and stands unchallenged as Commanding Officer. This absolute leader in the film field has made another of his all too rare productions. To Germany he went to make it; took Germany's post-War hunger as his theme; two peasants are his personalities. Dealing in the oldest properties of drama--love and poverty -- he has made an extraordinary film.

The tale is all simplicity. Hans and Inga, young and virtually without food or money, marry. They raise potatoes. Raiders seize the crop. They save a little money to buy beef and find the price has abruptly jumped beyond them. Sausage, presented by a rich American, they lose. Hand in hand at the end they are still happy. "Isn't Life Wonderful!" cry they. Neil Hamilton and Carol Dempster (cf. America) have the parts. So telling are their portraits that the director must be further commended. As postscript to this tribute must be added the opinion that the film will not be popular. So taken are the masses with tinsel imitations that simple sincerity must necessarily be tasteless.

Sundown. The chief impression afforded by this film is that all the cows in the world were assembled. This bovine convention purports to be the "last great Western herd," driven from the ranges by the squatter settlers, on its way to wider grazing lands in Mexico. In other words, the twilight of the old West. The idea and the purpose were commendable but the endless appearances of thousands of cows simply became monotonous. Woven roughly into the migration was the love story of the head cowboy and a girl whose cabin on the plains was wrecked in a stampede.

The Silent Accuser. Dog films usually succeed. Peter the Great is the canine protagonist of this example. He frees his master, falsely accused of murder, from jail. A remarkably trained actor, he is eminently worth watching.