Film Society Watches Valentino Love, Fight In Revival of Thriller

Rudolph Valentino in all his romantic glory; the Jean Hersholt, the Alan Hale, and the Wallace Beery of another day--all these familiar or renowned figures presented themselves to 700 members of the Film Society who attended the showing of "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" at the New Lecture Hall last night.

The movie tries to show what happens to the world when "the four horsemen," Conquest, War, Pestilence, and Death are loosed on the world. Valentino, who between love scenes fights for the French in the World War, is killed in the climax of the play by his own cousin, a German.

"The Four Horsemen" was a postwar film, produced in 1920-21 at a cost of only $640,000, but by 1925 it had grossed $4,000,000. It was the movie which established the reputation of its star, Rudolph Valentino, as the romantic figure of his age.

Hersholt takes the part, not of an amiable country doctor, but of a scheming German professor. Alan Hale is not Little John, but Karl van Hartrott, ambitious villain, greeted with hisses by the audience. Wallace Beery was cast as a tough colonel in the German army whose chief scene takes place in a bath-tub.

The Film Society's next program will be on Monday, December 12.