The Stage and Screen

“ROAD TO RUIN,” screen drama produced by Willis Kent and directed by Mrs. Wallace Reid and Melville Shyer.

If this picture which points out the moral of what happens to the daughters of parents who scold, was out and out and out burlesque it would have been very amusing but the producers are serious and the result is one of the shoddiest pieces of hokum a New York screen has harbored since those god old early silent days when villians were bad and heroines sweet, pure and willowy.

Following close on the hells of “What Price Innocence,” the audiences at the Caomeo are certainly being subjected to some strange and outdated film fare. “Road to Ruin,” and the guy that thought of that title should certainly get the award for original titling thinkling, is the sad, story of the beautiful young girl who gets in with bad company and takes to all the more popular forms of alleged vices, such as smoking, drinking, gambling, necking and worse. When she is arrested and brought into court,the kindly juvenile court advisers a lecture on parental responsibility, the like of which hasn’t been seen or heard in these parts since people gave up the idea that an exposed female ankle was the cardinal sin. But Mrs. Rid’s little talk seems to do no good for soon our per sistent heroine finds herself in even greater troubles and finally ends the picture by dying. The audience seemed a trifle relieved.

It is not the function of this reviewer to question the sincerity of the producers of this picture but it must be remarked that “True Life Photoplays,” the magazine which undertook its distribution, asked the audience to write in and state if they were impressed by the talents of any of the plalyers. My answer is that I was very much impressed-impressed by the utter futility of the film, the amateurishness of the production and the utter incompetence of teh actors, most of whom actedas if they were doing nothing more than reading a script which didn’t interest them very much.