New Pictures

Camille (Norma Talmadge). The Lady of the Camelias was snatched from her period of languishing romance, as originated by Novelist Alexandre Dumas, and flung into the milieu of. flapper costumes, clever subtitles and busy bigness that marks the careers of modern cinema shop girls. But not even by that stratagem did the weak, hackneyed scenario, though it followed artlessly enough the familiar story of the girl who finds her true love but renounces him when she develops lung trouble, gain reality to compensate for dramatic deficiency.

Lovers (Ramon Novarro, Alice Terry). Spanish diplomat Don Julian (Edward Martindel) lives in domestic placidity with his young wife, Teodora (Alice Terry), and his ward, Ernesto (Ramon Novarro). Busy-buzzing gossips circulate malicious lies about an affair between the young wife and the young ward. Duels result. Don Julian is run through. Ernesto avenges his death, sails far away with the maligned Teodora, to lands less suspicious. It is all simple, well-acted, not particularly engrossing.

Ankles Preferred (Madge Bellamy). A progression of pretty models through a series of French negligee adventures affords an opportunity to display trim figures, latest styles, tricky subtitles. The title derives from the heroine's cynical observation that the villainous capitalist would possess her for her flesh rather than her soul which, by contrast, is what interests the hero.

The King of Kings. The film, ostensibly sacred, is not inspired. Jt presents Christ in terms most commonly understood, most easily loved: a kindly Being Who performed miracles for others yet suffered physical agonies most heart-rending sooner than save Himself, The necessity for the suffering lies in the evil genius of Caiaphas, the high priest. But Producer Cecil B. DeMille's emphasis throughout is upon the pictured Christ's ability to straighten crooked feet, restore sight, raise the dead, upon the horribly graphic depictions of tortures.

Christ is shown 1) curing the boy Mark of his lameness, 2) restoring the sight of a blind girl, 3) exorcising the seven devils from the body of Mary of Magdala, 4) causing Peter the Fisherman to cast a hook and pull up a fish in whose mouth is wedged a silver coin, with which Jesus renders unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, 5) quickening the corpse of Lazarus, 6) saving the Woman Taken In Adultery with the admonition, "he that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone," 7) driving the money changers from the temple, 8) refusing the earthly crown of power, 9) resisting the temptation of Satan, 10) partaking of the Last Supper, 11) being tortured by the Roman centurions, 12) being condemned by the mob who chose Barabbas for pardon, 13) crucified, 14) hanging on the Cross while the earth is torn by melodramatic storm and quake, 15) rising from the tomb, 16) appearing again before the disciples.

To Actor Henry Byron Warner, player of crook roles (Alias Jimmy Valentine, Silence, etc.), was entrusted the role of Jesus. He acts with commendable dignity, yet, because the director insisted upon "closeups" he was forced to register divine compassion. When thus employed, he looked like what he might well have been--a worried actor. But it is hardly fair to expect divinity in imitative art. The film succeeds in spite of its art, in spite of such embarrassments as the Virgin Mary's patting Jesus on the back after His resurrection. It is not, from the very nature of its episodic construction, dramatic in the usual sense. Yet it is transcendent drama, cannot fail to wring hearts even slightly responsive to Christianity. This is due to,the skillful, profuse employment of excerpts from the Bible. Knockout Reilly (Richard Dix). Hero Reilly, a prizefighting jewel in the rough, casually gets vexed one day, socks someone on the chin. This Someone secretly "frames" the hero, who trudges off to gaol. Imagine the hero's rage when his sweetheart (Mary Brian) whispers to him that the Champion is none other than "he who framed you and made your mother go to work as a scrubwoman." Reilly, in the athletic person of Richard Dix,. gets into the spirit and form of big bout so flashily that the audience suspects he has spent his prison term at hard labor. "Killer" Agerra (Jack Renault, actually a fisti-cuffer) is, of course, roughly rocked off his throne.

Children of Divorce (Clara Bow). Kitty (Clara Bow) and Jean (Esther Ralston) are so oppressed by the circumstances of their respective parents' divorces, that they resolve never to go and do likewise. Therefore, when they bungle into matrimonial shoals, they stand by their sinking marriages rather than seek refuge in lifeboats of legal separation. This gives them all a chance to look nobly long-suffering in a good cause. Finally Kitty commits suicide, leaving one side of the quadrangle free to make a straight line to the altar, and a prince, Kitty's lover, free to sorrow in romantic retirement from the many-edged world. In all, Owen Johnson's novel is made soggier than ever.

Orchids & Ermine (Colleen Moore, Jack Mulhall). Telephone Girl "Pink" Watson (Colleen Moore) hungers for the fluff of luxury, but yields to true love in what she believes is the person of a millionaire's valet (Jack Mul-hall). Her designing acquaintance, Ermintrude (Gwen Lee), sets her cap for the valet's plutocratic employer, whom she ensnares. Virtue has its just reward when the valet turns out to be the millionaire, and the millionaire the valet. Oh, rapturous Pink! Alas, sad Ermintrude!

The Brute (Monte Blue). What a man is "EasyGoing" Martin Sondes (Monte Blue)! Hitherto ever cheerful, he turns suddenly touchy, prowls about like a surly lion with a knot in his tail--all because his girl Jennifer Duan (Leila Hyams), has taken to dancing in the Black Diamond Cafe. But the girl is a good girl, so the big fellow finally subsides, after swatting a half dozen extras, etc.