"ANTHONY IN WONDERLAND."
It was not till about the middle of the play, and after a narcotic had been
administered to him, that _Anthony_ got there; but we were in Wonderland
almost from the start, without the aid of drugs. For we were asked to
believe that Mr. CHARLES HAWTREY was a visionary, amorous of an ideal which
no earthly woman could realise for him. Occasionally he had caught a
glimpse of it in the creations of Art--at the Tate Gallery or Madame
TUSSAUD'S or the cinema; but in Bond Street never.
And the pity of it was that he had come in for a fortune of seven hundred
thousand pounds odd, which would pass elsewhere unless he married by a
given date. It was therefore the clear duty of his relatives--a couple of
sisters and their husbands--to find a wife for him. After vainly trying him
with every pretty woman of their acquaintance they had resort, in
desperation, to the black art of a certain _Mr. Mortimer John_ (U.S.A.), an
infallible inventor of stunts, who made a rapid diagnosis of the case and
at once pronounced himself confident of success.
Briefly--for it is a long and elaborate story--his scheme is to choose a
charming girl, and make a film drama round her. _Anthony_, with family, is
taken to see the show and occupies the best box in the Prince of Wales's
Theatre, from which, after a little critical comment upon us in the
audience, he falls in love with the heroine. It is the typical film of
lurid life on a Californian ranch, and might almost have been modelled on
one of Mr. Punch's cinema burlesques. There are the familiar scenes of a
plot to hang the girl's lover, swiftly alternating with scenes of her
progress on horseback through the primeval forest, and concluding with her
arrival just in time to shoot the villain and untie the noose that
encircles her lover's carotid.
On the return of the party from the cinema, _Mortimer John_ describes to
_Anthony_ the powers of a drug which induces the most vivid of dreams. He,
_John_, had once been in _Anthony's_ pitiful case, and through the services
of this drug had achieved his quest of the ideal woman. _Anthony_, greatly
intrigued, consents to swallow a sample of the potion. It is a simple
narcotic, and under its influence he is conveyed, in a state of coma and a
suitable change of apparel, into the heart of Surrey, where at sunrise he
is restored to animation and has the scenes of the evening's drama
re-enacted before his eyes, as originally filmed for exhibition. Under the
impression that this is merely the vivid dream that he had been promised,
he himself takes part in the living drama, playing the noble _rôle_ of an
exceptionally white man. In the course of it he exchanges pledges of
eternal love with _Aloney_ the heroine. Finally, in a spasm of heroic
self-sacrifice, he takes poison with the alleged purpose of saving the
heroine's life. We never quite gather how his suicide should serve this
end, but then the whole atmosphere is charged with that obscurity which is
the very breath of the film-drama.
[Illustration: AN IDYLL OF MOVIE-LAND.
_Anthony Silvertree_ MR. CHARLES HAWTREY.
_Aloney_ MISS WINIFRED BARNES.]
The poison is nothing worse than another dose of the narcotic, and under
its spell he is spirited back to London, where, on arrival, he is
confronted with the lady of his "dream," and _Mortimer John_ secures a
colossal fee. In addition, for he has had the happy thought of selecting
his own daughter for the heroine, he secures a plutocrat for his
son-in-law.
The worst of a play in which one is conducted out of ordinary life into the
regions of improbability by processes of which every step has to be just
conceivably possible, is that the conscientious development of the scheme
is apt to be tedious. And, frankly, the first scene or two, though
lightened by expectation, were on the heavy side.
But the film itself, when we got to it, was excellent fooling, and the
reconstruction of the original drama at Dorking-in-the-Wild-West was really
delightful. You can easily guess that Mr. CHARLES HAWTREY, as a cinema
hero, very conscious of his heroism ("it's a way we have in Montague
Square"), but always comfortably aware that in a dream, as he imagines it
to be, he can well afford to make the handsomest of sacrifices, had a great
chance. And he took it.
As the heroine, who has to play a rather thankless part in the mercenary
designs of her parent, Miss WINIFRED BARNES contrived, very naïvely and
prettily, to preserve an air of maiden reluctance under the most
discouraging conditions. As _Mortimer John_ Mr. SYDNEY VALENTINE had
admirable scope for his sound and businesslike methods. Of _Anthony's_
relations, all very natural and human, Miss LYDIA BILBROOKE was an
attractive figure, and the part of _Herbert Clatterby_, K.C., was played by
Mr. EDMUND MAURICE with his accustomed ease of manner.
If I wanted to find fault with any detail of the construction, it would be
in the matter of the ring which _Anthony_ places on the finger of _Aloney_
in the cinema play. This was a spontaneous act not included in the scheme
for which _Mortimer John_ was given the credit. Yet as the means by which
_Anthony_ identified her on his return to consciousness it went far to
bring that scheme to fruition. I think also that he ought to have shown
some trace of surprise (I should myself) on finding that he had
unconsciously exchanged his spotless evening clothes for the kit of a
broncho-buster.
I have hinted already at the comparative dulness of the long introduction
to what is the _clou_ of the play--the film and its reconstructed scenes.
Why not take a further wrinkle from the cinematic drama and throw upon the
screen a succinct résumé of the previous argument? Three or four minutes of
steady application to the text, and we might plunge into the very heart of
things. I throw out this suggestion not with any hope of reward, but in
part payment of my debt for some very joyous laughter. O.S.
* * * * *
"Wanted, Gentlewoman a few days old." _The Lady_.