The present offering of the University theater affords opportunity for pertinent comment on the state of acting in the American cinema. In both movies star players are featured, who cannot under any condition be classed as actors; they do not exercise any dramatic talent, for they possess none. Their whole efforts are centered upon walking impressively back and forth across the screen in parts which have been selected especially for them, parts which they can act because sympathetic to their own nature. Both stories are of back origin, both leading characters are but puppets, and if one movie is less bad than the other it is so only because its direction and photography are less uninspired.

"Alias the Doctor," probably the better of the two, is the vehicle selected for the restricted abilities of Richard Barthelmess. Since the atmosphere is melodrama and the theme is medicine, where else can such icy voiced and tendril fingered experts exist as those of Austria; so Bathelmess becomes Muller, and Richard, Karl. And thus before a background of beer steins, rambling stucco farmhouses, operating rooms and music boxes, Karl Muller develops as the boy who loves the soil but is forced to become a surgeon. Complication after complication is thrown in to keep awake a sleepy audience, but the chief attraction is better than average photography, which takes advantage of every opportunity for unique angles and views of the unconnected material. And while the supporting cast perspires through its impossible antics, Muller goes on his way, saving lives, making love to placid Marian Marsh, and finally returning to the soil. To those who like tight lips, impassioned appeals, shining instruments, and palpitating perspiration the movie will be a success.

"Shopworn," selected primarily for the limited talent of Barbara Stanwyck has the dubious honor of being the most badly photographed combination of miscast players, stupid lines and rehashed settings that this reviewer has seen in many a day. The plot doubtless plagiarized from Horatio Alger tells how persistence can overcome maternal jealousy and bring the loving couple together. Honors go to Clara Blandick and to Zazu Pitts for rather neat handling of character parts; but as for Regis Toomey in his first lead, and Barbara Stanwyck in what certainly should be her last,-all that can be said is that they deserve their fate.