Critical Moments

I shudder to think what the picture “Gambling,” which is now being shown at the Mayfair Theater, would have been like had George M. Cohan been absent from the cast. Even with that great actor dominating the screen the film leaves much to be desired in the way of entertainment.

Mr. Cohan’s play “Gambling,” from which the film was adapted, is certainly not among that actor and playwright’s major efforts. At best it was a fair melodrama. Its transcription for film purposes has not added any virtues to what is an implausible and stagey story. Briefly, “Gambling” follows the career of an honest upright gambler whom even police inspectors admire. His step-daughter is murdered and with the odds against him our gambler is able to bring the assassin to his just desserts. On the stage “Gambling” was fast-moving but thin, and now that it has been made into a film its competent parts have been drawn much too fine.

Messrs. Selwyn and Franklin, who produced the film under the Fox trade mark, may be, in fact, they are, very able theatrical producers, but when they went to Astoria to make “Gambling” they seemed to have left all their ideas on what makes a good production in their New York offices. Rowland Lee, director of the picture, was not much help. He permitted the limitations of the play to bind him closely, with the result that “Gambling” is little more than a photograph of a stage play.

Cohan, always an excellent actor, is unable to rise above the material. His emoting does nothing more than slow up a not-too-rapidly paced film; however there are moments when his zest and charm are turned on and those moments are delightful and almost make “Gambling” worth seeing.

POST ROAD

At the Masque Theater Wilbur Daniel Steele and Norma Mitchell’s comedy, “Post Road,” was added to the current theatrical season. Its addition, although not an important one, should not go entirely unnoticed.

“Post Road” has some virtues. The plot is unusual, the directing fine and the acting, especially that of Lucile Watson, Percy Kilbride, Mary Sargent, Romaine Callender and Edward Fielding, fluent and convincing.

Baby kidnaping is the thesis of “Post Road.” Miss Watson, a wise spinster who runs an inn, one night harbors a doctor, his wife and a nurse. No sooner are these people within her doors when the wife begins to scream and a few moments later the birth of a son is announced. But alas, it is all a plot. The baby is really the abducted son of a rich couple. However, Miss Watson circumvents the abductors, but not before there are a number of complications and some fire-works supplied by state troopers and other minions of the law. Some of it is a lot of fun, but the idea of the play is kept hidden from the audience until well into the middle of the proceedings.

NOTES FROM THE STAGE AND SCREEN

“Stevedore” having been sent out on the road, the Theatre Union announces a new play which will open next week in their Fourteenth Street Civic Repertory Theater. It is called “Sailors of Cattaro.” … “The Czar Wants to Sleep,” a Russian-made satire on life under the mad Czar Paul, will have its premier at the Cameo this Saturday. There is a complete musical score by Sergei Prokoffieff to accompany the action…. Also on Saturday Anatol France’s “Crainquebille” will have its American premiere. It is a French film directed by de Barconcelli and may be seen at the Acme Theater on Union Square….