"ORPHANS OF THE STORM."

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17633, 9 December 1922, Page 11

"ORPHANS OF THE STORM."

GRnTITH'S GREAT FILM AT LIBBRTTT NEXT SATURDAY. ■; In the great drama of the French Revolution, "Orphans of the Storm," which will be screened at the Liberty Theatre next Saturday, 16th inst., there is told l perhaps f&e greatest story of ell time. All the g-ory and splendour of Royal Versailles is there;; and! with it, i all the fiendish cruelty and lust of the Old Regime in France. Following upon this sceoa of splendid vice come the hideous-bar-baflo passions of the Revolution; ..the starved and ragged crowd rushes the Bastile; the dreadful Reign of Terror runs rivers of blood. Startling and tragic realism is brought into ti«e picture. A lovley girl, carted to the guillotine in the -tumbril, spat upon and mocked by the foul mob, actually has' her neck in the awful - structure on the high scaffold before tho reprieve arrives. Neither the lascivious splendour nor the diabolic vengeance of this period in history has been exaggerated, and the film is a wonderful composition. Ita maker has moments of genius. .Intense* and beautiful pathos is acted by the two lovely Gish sisters, Dorothy and Lillian, who are screened as two girla left helpless orphans in the time of terror. One girl is blind, which permits the weaving of a beautiful tale of sisterly protection and tendernesa: And into the lives of one of tho girls is brought a touching love story —she is saved'from outrage,, and her gallant young aristooratio defender afterwards, owes to her his own salvation from the guillotine. AU that is touching, and beautiful, all'that is splendid, all that is powerful in screen drama is introduced by Griffith into this film. The difference between bald entertainment with genius is a matter of scientific embellishment. The embellishment without genius would,: detract from entertainment. How they aTo scientifically combined is best illustrated in the world's best motion pictures. An pxample ia "Orphans of the Storm." The theme is in the emotional oideals of Henriette and Louise Girard, of # "The Two Orphans" of old dramatic tradition. On the stage the story is confined in its realism to three or" four obvious stage sets and the cramped action of a few square feet. Iriterpreted by D. W. Griffith on the screen, all this gives way to vast spaces, fairyland" vistas, hordes of people in pictufesque rags, colourful silkfl or martial uniforms, and iranumoTable art combinations of place and" atmosphere. The vital germ of the whole situation is echoed and expanded in gorgeous fashion, becoming virtually "emotion de luze." One critic describes it thus: "Emotional, throbbing and sustained, telling -a definite story of a fine' love~ that runs like a gold cord through the wonderful fabric of the spectacle dram*." The "wonderful fab-. Tic" in this case is the grandeur of "Orphans of the Storm/' embellished «s it is bv the parallel action of the French Revolution shown with the genius of Griffith. The box plan will open at the Bristol Piano Co., on Wednesday morning.