ON THE SCREEN

Ladies' Mirror, Volume 2, Issue 5, 1 November 1923, Page 50

ON THE SCREEN

"»yHE Fall of Babylon" is the latest addition to the D. W. Griffith cycle of super-spectacles that found its forerunners in "The Birth of a Nation," "Intolerance," and "Hearts of the World." Interest in "The Fall of Babylon" is especially keen locally, because of the announcement that it has been secured for a special engagement here at The Strand. In this most recent of his big spectacular productions, Mr. Griffith turns from the smoke of battle in "Hearts of the World" to the highly colourful splendour of the days of Babylon—the dancing girls, the Bacchanalian feasts, the walls three hundred feet high, the sensational chariot races, Ishtar's temple, the great halls more than a mile in length, the gigantic alabaster statues, and the varicoloured lights that play and glow upon the fountains singing with wine. O O o '"yVHE Sheik's Wife" is a great French production filmed in the deserts of Arabia. The story comes to a thrilling climax in the night attack of the Arabs on the English camp. The Sheik, maddened with jealousy at the thought that the British are trying to take his European wife from him, rouses his tribesmen against the intruders. But the surprise attack fails, for the English are forewarned. o o o Arabs are used in "The Sheik's Wife," which was produced by Henry-Roussell, and daring feats of horsemanship are performed on Arabian steeds. Picturesque ruins of an ancient temple, interiors of harems, luxurious and magnificent; the Arabian court of justice and the fight between the Spahis and the tribesmen reflect the incomparable action of beauty. The picture is one of spectacular scenes and unusual action. O O O P ROM the grandeur of the Court of Louis X. in "The Eternal Flame" and the enchantment of the turreted East in Robert Hichens' "The Voice From the Minaret" to the underworld of New York City may seem a long step for any motion picture star, but the versatile Norma Talmadge makes it with her latest drama, "Within the Law," one of the most powerful crook plays ever brought to the screen. As Mary Turner, the little shop girl around whom Bayard Vellier wrote his tremendously successful stage production, Miss Talmadge is said to perform the finest emotional work of her career. o o o J 7 VER hear of a motion picture hero who engages in a duel and loses " it?—who participates in a death grapple with another fellow and does not "get" his man, though the latter drops dead from heart failure?— makes love to a beautiful woman and at the same time remains true to his real sweetheartand who, despite all these things, still remains a hero? We guess not. And yet this is the entirely different sort of hero that Richard Barthelmess is introducing in his delineation of Charles Abbott in "The Bright Shawl," the John S. Robertson production, adapted from Joseph Hergesheimer's gripping romance of Cuba in the days before it overthrew the yoke of Spanish tyranny.