The New Pictures

The New Pictures

The Magnificent Lie (Paramount) is a tediously sentimental picture which for six reels endeavors to strain pathos out of a situation too peculiar to be sad in the first place. The situation is that of a soldier who, 13 years after the War, is still romantically devoted to a French actress named Duchene, because she once patted his head when he was in a hospital. When Duchene visits the U. S., he goes to see her act and to give her a bunch of camelias. In the middle of her play he goes blind. Practical jokesters later persuade a cabaret girl who is good at imitations to impersonate Duchene. When she does so, she falls in love with the soldier, as the audience has foreseen. He is wildly agitated when he discovers her duplicity. But, also as the audience has foreseen, he finally comes to appreciate her sterling qualities. Then an automobile accident restores his sight. Perfunctory direction by Berthold Viertel, and the wooden way in which Ralph Bellamy plays the soldier make The Magnificent Lie seem trite and unmagnificent. The role of the cabaret girl was perhaps selected for Ruth Chatterton because it gave her a chance to display her overestimated versatility: she uses stock French mannerisms, hisses in a coquettish way when impersonating Duchene. Long publicized as "first lady of the cinema" Actress Chatterton has lately been the subject of Hollywood gossip. It was rumored that Warner Brothers had "stolen" her from Paramount; then, that Warner Brothers had agreed to give her back. Actress Chatterton's Paramount contract expires in October. When it expires, she is expected to begin working for Warner Brothers.

Son of India (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer). Ramon Novarro, dressed in a turban and sitting on top of an elephant, does not look in the least like Mahatma Gandhi nor any other East Indian. He does, however, look enough like the late Rudolph Valentino to inspire audience reactions of the Valentino kind if not the same degree. In this picture Novarro is an Indian merchant prince in love with a girl from Boston whose brother has once done the Indian a great favor. He has a chance to show his gratitude when the brother underlines the difficulties of inter-racial marriage. Indian pictures always show holymen, elephants, snake-charmers and at least one tiger-hunt. Son of India sticks to its caste: the elephant runs amok when hit by a knife, hurled at Novarro.

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