WHY GIRLS LEAVE HOME

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXVI, Issue 18443, 29 March 1922, Page 6

WHY GIRLS LEAVE HOME

A STRANGE PICTURE OF AMERICAN LIFE.

In our own country the average girl usually leaves home to set up another one with her husband. Some girls, however, leave home for purely selfish motives before marriage Young and irrepressible, they deem it fun to go into ‘‘digs/’ with a girl chum and have “a good time.” For various other reasons girls sometimes break away from the sheltering influence of home. But the reasons alleged in the filmdrama. “Why Girls Leave Home," pass all understanding (writes the film critic.) UNNATURAL FLIM FATHERS. Have we met a father so puritanical that he could say to his daugher, aged twenty or more, “How dare you go out at night without my permission?” He is one of the fathers in this American film-story, and we are scarcely surprised when the young woman retorted, “I insist upon my right to enjoy life while I am young.” Crushed to breaking-point, sick of the gramophone as her only amusement, she leaves home to live with girl-friends who work as professional dancing-partners.

What would you think, too, of this for a household of three? A wealthy father whose sole interest in life is the acquisition of more dollors, a mother who fritters away her time at bridge parties, and the only child, a young girl, who, unknown to her parents, drinks and dances with “fast” companions at “flash” restaurants, and rarely sees her bed before 2 a.m.? Such is the other American (film) home! This pampered, pretty flapper, whose welfare has been so strangely neglected, is the other girl who leaves home,- In her case it is to meet a married man in a place of doubtful repute. Both girls are saved and return to their penitent parents.

“Why Girls Leave Home ”is rank melodrama, entirely unconvincing. It will entertain the few who like this type of film; but, thank Heaven, such parents are not British! I feel sure that, they are rare in America. FROM GIRLS TO BOYS. All boys, and “old boys,” will like "The Fifth Form at St. Dominic’s,” an adaption of Talbot Baines Read’s famous school-story. The film is good, and British; and such a change from “sex stuff”! It required pluck, I imagine, to handle boys in crowds! The bOys are as natural as schoolboys are expected to be. If you know the book, you will find that it has been closely followed. The school atmosphere is splendid in its realism Ralph Forbes, who plays the role of the boy who comes out top in the “exam arid is wrongfully accused of theft, is said to resemble, facially, the Prince of Wales. I wonder if you will notice it, “To be deceived is less shameful than to be suspicious.” Such is the motive of the film called “The Devil's Pass-Key,” a much nicer picture than its title indiactes. An innocent wife 1 eeomes involved in a Paris scandal, around which her husband writes a successful play, not knowing that the woman in the case in his own wife. For so slight a story the film is over long. The many gorgeous “sets” and k°autiful dresses, however, provide a for all eyes. Some of the later scenes are remarkably dramatic, and the acting, headed by Sam de Grasse as the husband-, is first class. Paris (made in California), is very interesting, and no finer theatre scenes have ever been filmed. But why is an important letter shown so small that it is probably missed by fifty per cent, of those who wish to read it?