Cinema: The New Pictures Jun. 2, 1924

Sherlock, Jr. A cinema operator (Buster Keaton) falls asleep at his machine and dreams he is a great detective—the kind that only the cinema can produce. The unexpected, fantastic dream situations lend themselves to some remarkable trick effects, including one in which Buster walks right out of an audience and into a picture on the screen, only to be promptly hurled back into the audience by one of the players acting on the silver sheet.

The Code of the Sea. This picture contains some very authentic thrills, even laying hold of the sophisticated cinema-goer who knows there is a happy ending around the corner. It has the most legitimate and engrossing scenes of a shipwreck and rescue at sea ever plastered on the films. This concerns the efforts of the young commander of a light-ship to rescue his beloved and her party, clinging to a yacht that is impaled on treacherous reefs. They are gradually carried off by grace of the wireless and the breeches buoy. The young commander, who must absolve himself from the taint of cowardice inherited from poltroon father, is torn between love and his duty to stick by his ship in a storm. Rod La Rocque is excellent, not only in his heroic moments, but in the dramatization of the inhibition that is the backbone of this story. Jacqueline Logan is convincing as the girl who believes in him.

Mademoiselle Midnight. More of Mae Murray's fuss and feathers thinly disguised as acting. This time Miss Murray has her histrionic hysterics in Mexico. The general blurred impression given by the picture is like this: Mae Murray—large mountains —Mae Murray—midnight love trysts —Mae Murray—a weird fandango by somebody described as a screen star —Mae Murray — cowboys having spasms—Mae Murray.

Cytherea. Not a very sincere or inspired attempt to capture the rapt flapper attention excited by tales of Joseph Hergesheimer's best seller. This is the least successful of the various Hergesheimer stories that have been hurled with some effect upon the screen. It seeks to reveal the spirit of the old pagan goddesses still inhabiting the modern society damsel — accomplishing this with gilded settings in Manhattan and Cuba, where the soul is so easily laid bare.