The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • 47

DECEMBER 15, 1923. PAKT Hi. DEVIL'S ISLAND FILM ATTACKED MISS ULRIC IN TRIVIAL EFFORT "South Sea Another Comic Mimical Few Authorities Living to Judge Authenticity I Mrs. ISiles Compiles Data After Long Visit Poignancy of Play LoH in Burlesque Paul Luhas Acts Brilliantly in "Half Way to Hrrtcn SUNDAY HORNING. giT Ji Staff -a cl Sere ens English Historian CaJU Penal Land Iniquitous Sink BY NORBERT LISK NEW YORK, Dec.

12. (Exclusive) Lenore Ulric's second talking pic BY PHILIP K. SCHEUER "It Tins; it Tains. In tftis sbd land it rains. Oh.

France, how regret thy skies. While it rams and rains. We weep. We weep. Kver must convicts grieve.

Here ahere the parrots mock men'g woe, Wmle it rains, weep." Song of Devil's Island. The battle is on. While our more learned folk are at it hammer and tongs over the authenticity of the Devil's Island scenes in the talking mm ihmv 1 iqK i Rwil fl ti- 1 few Alw? MiJvh 7 A ftfy 7 A ALL DAY SHE TRILLS HER A-E-I-O-U'S Bermuda's Mfif wmm CHARM HERE "iV IX FOR PLAYER WL" MS 4 VN Lit a Chevret Finds Voice Culture Most JSecessary to Talkie Success The road to talkies fame Is strewn with vowels. If there is any doubt as to the truthfulness of this statement to Lita Chevret, the charming young lady who is blazing her way to fame in "Rio Rita," current at the Car-thay Cirple Theater, will set you right. Lita, you see, is one of the few fortunates being coached in voice and diction technique by Nance O'Neill and her husband, Alfred Hickman.

For several months she has been studying religiously and every morning for exactly one hour, strange sounds may be heard coming from her bungalow. Particular emphasis is placed on the pronunciation of the well-known 1, us. "But one has to practice," she smiled, "I pull down all the shades, fihllf tVtA i-tru-if anrl etnxt I picture, "Condemned," current at Grauman's Chinese, the majority Of us are grateful for the Intelligence that such a place exists at all. That it does exist; that it Is one. of three islands "so close together that you could almost throw a stone from one to the other;" that it is located "on the Maroni." which in turn is located off the northeastern eoast of French Guiana, and that its most, famous prisoner was Capt.

Alfred Dreyfus (1895-99,) are all irrefutable facts, easily unearthed. Details of the place are less simply found. Mrs. Blair Niles, who, with her husband, Robert Niles, paid a long to the colony with the official sanction of the French government, and later wrote a book about it, is one authority. It was Mrs.

Niles's novel, to Devil's Island," from which, the film was adapted. Richard Halli- burton, in his latest volume, "New Worlds to Conquer," also devotes three chapters to it. 1 HALLIBURTON ARRIVES Mr. Halliburton descended rather abruptly into the somnolent tropical town of Cayenne, French Guiana, He was a passenger on a seaplane. But only as far as Cay's, enne.

The plane, having been re- fueled, left him behind as excess oallast. Mr. Halliburton, abandoned to his own devices, spent a month in leisurely examination of the different prisons, lived and ate with the convicts and even passed a couple of weeks on the island from which the colony takes its macabre title. Mr. Halliburton returned not specially, one presumes, but still in time to attend the eastern premiere of Mr.

Goldwyn's picture, "Con-a demned." In the New World Jf he defends the. French beret worn by Ronald Colman, star of the film, as a commonplace of the island, and mentions photographs to prove it. He declares also that the picturesque sea parapet of the love scene, which has been criticised as a figment of the producer's Imagination, is no exaggeration, and again mentions photographs. "There are," he concedes, "in-. accuracies In the picture.

The solitary colls, in which you see Colman in a large part of the picture, are wror jf. Actually there are two rows of them, covered over by a long shed that keeps out the light." To return to Mrs. Niles and the Miland, one is naturally constrained to ask, Who are these prisoners? Whence do they come? And why? A third would have come from the various houses of correction, Mrs. Niles answers. These would younger men under 25 led to the houses of correction by some folly of youth, some mistaken early training, or by the gutter urchin's lack of all training The power-, ful.

muscular, strangely tattooed men are from the battalions of Africa, sent there lor. military service a because disqualified. These men arrive in Guiana generally between the ages of 25 and 35. Hardened by Africa, they are the sort who stand the best chance of surviving conditions In the Devil's Island colony. The more refined and in-.

tellectual might be of any age. Among them would be many of the first offenders, men who had fallen before some sudden and overpowering temptation. They might be guilty of forgery, of embezzlement or of murder, blindly -committed. Sentenced to so many 'p years of "peine," to forced labor throughout their prison terms, and (Continued on Page 29, Column 3) LINCOLN ROLE CLINGS ON Frank McGlynn Has Lived Character of Famous President on Stage, in Vaudecille for Ten Years BY ALMA WHITAKER It was a slow-woven scheme of Destiny which contrived that Frank McGlynn, actor, should be "entrusted with the key to Abraham Lincoln's tomb and bring him forth again." For this Frank, who has been an actor for more than thirty years, will present his famed Abraham Lincoln to us for one more week at the El Capitan, had almost despaired of his fortune, when the telegram inviting him to acoept this role was handed to him on the stage, on the very night w7hen a too-long delayed touring engagement was abruptly brought to an end in Philadelphia. Frank had a wife and six children then, and the trail had been hard, for successes had been few and far between.

has been seen in other roles, not- ing it up and down the scale. have often been seen on the Three Footllght Offerings Viewed in Advance In "Oh, Susanna!" opening Christmas Day at the Mayan, appear Eva Roslta and Carlotta King, among others. The two are shown at top, Miss King twice. The play is a musical one, new toany stage. Elinore Jackson, featured in "Maternally Yours," arrives the 23rd inst.

at the Mtvtc Box. Miss Jackson graces the lower left-hand corner of Staff Artist L. Ewing's drawing. This play, a comedy, is also new. Then there is Mae West, pictured with Gerald Kent and who brings "Diamond Lll" to the Biltmore Theater a week from today.

ably as Rabbi Judah in "Stead GOLDEN ERA STILL PREVAILS Talking Pictures Continue to Etxich Film Industry; More Highly Specialized CiftV Required of Those Working in Studios ture, "South Sea Rose," at the Roxy this week, is scarcely more important than her first and fails to present her in an approximation her position on the stage. This is due not only to the triviality of the picture Itself, but to Miss Ulrica insistence on exaggeration, which the screen, true to precedent, exaggerates some more. The result is an impersonation which is faintly comic In spite of the star's gift as an actress. These include a magnetic and arresting personality and a husky voice that is decidedly individual. But in transforming the serious, rather poignant stage play known as "La Gringa" into a discordant combination of musical comedy and burlesque, the offering becomes a vaudeville show glorified, in which no point is overlooked to evoke laughter from those whose mirth is expressed from the pit of the stomach.

This may excuse Miss Ulric from the overemphasis of her acting and costuming to those cognizant of her ability on the stage, but it will not endear her to the larger public which supports the screen nor does it yield more than an ordinary picture in spite of the money spent on it. The tropical episodes are handsomely staged and the chanting of the natives is haunting, but as soon as Miss Ulric undulates on the scene and takes the star's posit'on in the center of the chorus it becomes just another musical comedy in a South Sea setting. This would be all right, but the story happens to concern itself with a conflict of character and heredity In alien surroundings. When this is rejected in favor of burlesquing the clash, the pictyre becomes nondescript, its undertones too serious for the musical-comedy treatment given it, and its lack of tunefulness too apparent to put it in the class of screen musical. This point is illustrated by the presence cf Charles Bickf ord, who repeats his "Dynamite" characterization in the same cast with Tom Patricola and Daphne Pollard, who do their stuJT well, but who clash psychologically with the grim seriousness of -such a character as Mr.

Bickford plays. He, under these circumstances, might better have been a song end dance man. DIRECTORIAL SKILL' "Half Way to Heaven," at the Paramount, reveals George Abbots as a director whose skill gives credi bility and humanness to episodes screen, ana manes interesting a picture which lsnt really important oej'ona qualifying as a good program item, fine discrimination in the choice of dialogue as well as Its delivery, is another commendable point, as well as the brilliant acting of Paul Lukas as the heavy. Acrobats bent on murdering their partners are not characters' that one easily believes or with whom one sympathizer because they are such childish fellows. Mr.

Lukas rises above this category by making one believe that he will carry out his fell design, and at the same time he conveys the suffering of a mature man in the torments 6t jealousy. To many he is a'so a sympathetic figure as he glowers at Charles Rogers. The latter repeats ins lammar penormance, its novelty coming from his presence on a trapeze. At least we have not seen this phase of his versatility before. A strong item on the program is the Christie comedy.

"Dangerous Females," with that inimitable pair, Marie Dressier and Polly Moran. who furnish heartier laughter than ordinarily echoes through the gilded vistas of the Paramount "Skinner's Big at the Colony, is deficient, in the lausrhs that occurred in the silent version performed some years ago by Reginald Denny and Laura La Plante, though Glenn Tryon shines as a skillful comedian in those episodes where (Continued on Page 18, Column 4) inis same nh this casualness Mr. Heggie accepU moving-talking, pictures. They are more difficult than stage; they interest him. If a casualist be allowed a determination, Heggie has one.

He won't do anything but good work. He tries never to accept a part unless it presents an opportunity for such. But he has been too long an actor not to know how also to be a good fellow. Ha Is not above accepting a small part, if he be permitted to do it to his taste. I' In "The Mighty," now dominating the Paramount Theater, Heggie has one brief moment in which to ba remembered, the test of the real actor.

So casual an addition Is it to his career that the Australian must think twice before it all comes back to him. JUST A FATTIER "Let's see, what was it I did? believe I was either Esther Ral-ston's aged huvsband or her old ta ther. Yes. the old father this time: the agd husband was for Trio Wheel of And I had a speec'i, too. I mastn't forfet.

Out. of ths nowher I enter a room. 'We'l. night' I say, -it's time for mo to De In bed." arid I proceed to In a hurry." The law of balance, comwnra-tlon. perhaps coincidence, saw.

to it that in the fifth and lost picrurs he did for Paramount, O. P. gia has his best screen role. It Lillian'Dean of "Ferguson Family" Likens Los Angeles to Island Home The season of Christmas trees and holly wreaths is flying toward Los Angeles and with it come memories to Lillian Dean. Memories of the holidays spent upon an Island where the streets are paved with white coral, and the scent of sandalwood lends its perfume to a balmy air.

Where native voices chant carols the whole night through, and simple melodies declare the happy spirit of the season. For four years Lillian Dean called Bermuda her home at Christmas time. For four years out of the thirty-three, she has played on the stage she has eaten holiday dinner on the enchanted isles of the Atlantic. "Los Angeles reminds me a great deal of the islands," she said, as the Christmas music being broadcast in the street outside Ihe President Theater floated in through her dressing-room window. "All the palms and the music it seems just like a bit of Bermuda transported across the sea.

Everyone seems to be everyone else's friend. It Is really a remarkable atmosphere." This marks toe first Christmas for Lillian Dean, who plays the rather thankless role of Ma Ferguson in "That Ferguson Family," current at the President Theater, in the southern part of California, and in spite of the fact that on the stage her sole object in life is to make her family miserable in reality she is the most ardent of "make the other fellow happy" enthusiasts. "It's rather a unique experience, this playing a mean and selfish mother," Miss Dean confessed. "Quite to the contrary, I have usually interpreted kind and sympathetic characters. "Audience reactions are hard to catch from roles such as the terror, of the Ferguson domicile.

In comedy one can tell if an audience is pleased by the laughs; in heavy drama, by the heavy silence." But Ma Ferguson has Lillian Dean stumped at least as far as the audience is concerned. As for herself although the tyrannical mother held little attraction for her (Continued on Page 17, Column 6) In "General BY EDWIN SCHALLERT JUDGED by the Will H. Hays statistics presented before a national business conference, the motion-picture industry' is booming as never before. Momentary lulls, therefore, in production, of which there is one right now, don't hold much significance. or my neighbors asked me if I spoke Hawai'an which might eive an Jnklinsr to an idea of how the.se exercLses sound." Lita.

however, has gone at it In earnest. Everything from car cards to signboards give her leeitimate material to work upon. in addition to practicing in the confines of her room, however, the youthful actress admits to other handicaps. Miss O'Neill and Mr. Hickman insist that their pupils put uieir accumulating Knowledge into everyday practice and Lita is the sort of a young person who hates to spring a broad upon any of ncr mends.

"I was terrlblv self-conscious at first," she admitted, "but I'm getting so that now I hardl notice it. It takei "work, though," she continued, "three lessons a week to say nothing of the practice hours." Lita's first appearance behind the footlights was made at an early age, when a determination to "show up" her dramatics teacher prompted her to depart in search of a role on the stage. The play-'Experience," was- being cast at the time by the Fulton Players of Oakland, incidentally Lita's home town. Although Lita's interview with the casting director netted her nothing more than a "super" job, it was not long before she was doing leading ladies for the organization. With this as a back- (Ccntinued on Page 16, Column 5) more.

Type casting had reached a mgn stage of perfection. The talkies have meant com paratively little change in this Indeed, type casting is more the rule than evur. And in a sense the limitations are greater because the voice as well as the appearance has to match the requirements. H' OWEVTSR, that is not the case with all talent. There are opportunities for a versatility that were previously nonexistent.

A player who can adapt himself to a variety of characters can probably go further now than at any time previously. But he must have it in his voice to do this. The reason for this Is that the audible gifts of stars are at the moment in the ascendancy. And tills may be partly attributed to the fact that the voice as hoard on the screen is a newer thing and also that because of the lack of adaptability among many, and the great adaptability of some play-' ers to microphoning, there Is a (Continued on Page 25, Column 5) JACKIE LIKES 'EM WICKED Bad Women in Drama Usually More Interesting and Intelligent, Miss Logan Asserts Nothing pleases Jacqueline Logan more than to be given a good All the same, destiny had been at work, for over in England a young man named John Drlnkwater had written this epic American play, produced it at a little amateurish, theater in Birmingnam and set the theatrical world on fire. Harris, the New York producer, had bought it for America but who, who could play that noble role with suitable distinction? Lester Loncrgan, thp director, read the book and also lent his cabin ir the Maine woods to a Dr.

Barry i'or a week-end. Dr. Barry took the play with him to read, and talked of it to the neighboring cabin owner, one Bob Con-ness, actor. DIRECTED FILM ONCE Now way back in 1909, Frank McGlynn directed pictures for a New York company. turning out -a two-reeler a week and writing most of them himself.

One of these two-reelers had been a sketch of Lincoln, in which McGlynn played the nation's patriot. And Conness worked lor McGlynn in those days. So it was Conness who insisted that the one man in the country who could play that role in the great Drinkwater play was McGlynn if he could be found. That telegram was the result so that Lincoln not only retrieved and ennobled Frank's stage reputation after twenty-three years of struggles, but also triumphantly filled his exchequer. When I met him at the Hollywood Plaza, he was indeed, the personification of Lincoln.

Every one in the lobby paused to stare. He has lived and breathed Lincoln slno 1919, when he created the role in New York with instant success. He was' here with it at the Mason in 1922. Since then he T7 CASUAL IN ALL BUT WORK O. P.

Heggie Takes Parts as They Come, Striving to Make Each One Distinguished Life and work are to O. P. Heggie two very casual things. Twenty years ago, when he cams to this country with Ellen Terry he ws consumed with ambitions. Twenty years around the theater have taught him nothing Is worth the price of seriousness.

bad-woroan" role. She has two for her preference. She has found such characters interesting and, of necessity, intelligent. Things don't come to them as they always do to our more upright heroine. Th2y must make "breaks," relying solely upon their wits and wilos to get them anywhere at all.

fast," as Andrew Jackson (another President) in "That Awful Mrs. Eaton," and Cabot in "Desire Under the Elms." But always in between, he went back to Lincoln, even playing a Lincoln sketch in vaudeville written by himself. Henry Duffy brought him out from New York for this production and it's like coming home. "I think that Lincoln wa3 the nation's greatest hero as a public officer. I have studied every phase of his life, maimers, appearance, with deepest research.

He was a shrewd clever politician as well as at idealist, a masterly combination. Drinkwater's Lincoln is idealized, of course, so that I am careful not to use the odd pronunciation of some words which Lincoln himself actually used. NEVER BELITTLEMENT "When we took the play to Springfield, 111., I met many people who had known him personally, who complimented me on both my appearance and deportment in the role. The Chamber of Com' merce had wished me to impersonate Lincoln in a parade, but I could not. That would have seemed to me to be cheapening that great man.

My feeling for Lincoln is so devout, and the play is so masterly, that I would never do anything to belittle him in the smallest way." Mr. McGlynn is a Catholic and highly religious. He has a wife, who was Rose Sheridan, whom he met in his first touring company and courted and married in three weeks love at first sight, thirty years ago. They have six children, one boy being educated for the priesthood. Mr.

McGlynn was born in San Francisco and started hln stage career there (Continued on Page 17, Column 6) is ttf: 'fJ 1 84 FM) 'mw0C Artist uruce Kusseii, Here Tomorrow, the Barrymore Prof lie Talks at Last ine unaeriying tendency is to- ward expansion, what with a 15 per increase in theater attendance, and additions to the studio investment, and to tha amount of money that is being put into the making of pictures. It is estimated that production costs have already shown a gain of approximately 23 per cent, and that they will show a further enlargement of 15 per cent during the coming ty3ar. ONE thing that has been disclosed in present studio expansion is that talking pictures require very highly specialized talent. At least, it would seem so from their record to date. This has resulted in the use of a greater number of talented people, with perhaps less activity for the single individual, although what he or she does in a.

picture is now far more important than it was at any time previously. Silent films in thir later days had become exceedingly selective. The need for the particular player for the particular role had been stressed more and Crack," Due togan, a the costume Countess Carola, a momentary event in the adventures of "Gen. Crack," presents Jacqueline for the third time in the guise and glamour cf the vampire. It was an oppor tunity worth waiting for, in her estimation; first, because of the privilege of appearing with John Uarrymore in his talking tlcbut and second, because she feels that speech is bringing vampires into their own onco Uea.

Crack" opens at Warners' II; Theater tomorrow and Mi: Logan considers it "one of the important pictures yet made. Although my part isn't really much, I wanted to do It badly and I'm glad I did. I learned such a lot from Mr. Barrymore. We all dtJ.

When not in a scene, instead of leaving the set, everyone stood and watched him breathlessly. I have never, seen that before. SETS ARE MAGNIFICENT "The sets and costumes for the picture are magnificent. There is one scne, especially, at the court of Leonold where the ambassadors of many nations are gathered. The iia.e made a wonderful tllu-f possible, for you can hear thes: r.i.'u speak in th3 accents of their various countries." Part of the film was photographed in the nearly perfected Technicolor.

The experience strengthens a the- Cratinued on Page 18, Column i) i rlY Warner Brothers, Via Vitaphone, Have the Privilege of Presenting The picture will be offered as tha new feature at Warner's Hollywood Theater. John Barrymore is. depicted the Distinguished Star of Stage and Screen In His First Audible Role in four of the figures. At left appears Armida, who plays ine gypsy girl, and further to tha right, Jacqueline ca Page-1 Column 2 eha wears as Countess Carola, Tha sketches are the handlwors of CUfX.