'Topsy and Eva' Qualifies as Screen Novelty

Stars Are Accorded Unusual Ovation at Egyptian

Familiar Song Selections Please Anew

(Reprinted from Friday's late edition. The Times)

  It's a show, at any rate. That much may definitely be set forth regarding the presentation of the first picture made by the Duncan Sisters, and their appearance on the stage in conjunction therewith at Grauman's Egyptian Theater. The youngsters will probably enjoy it the most, and the grownups will have their share of fun too.

  Rosetta and Vivian Duncan were tendered a huge reception at the premiere of their film version of "Topsy and Eva" last night. Indeed, the motion-picture colony has seldom done such signal honors to any favorites. There was a large and very representative attendance and all that bright interest and sparkle that usually surrounds an opening in Hollywood.

  The Duncan Sisters demonstrated again that they are popular idols. They sang numbers that are now familiar, but seem to bring just as much joy as they always did, and they looked much more than attractive when they came on the stage both wearing blond wigs, and Rosetta minus her black-face make-up.

  More than an hour of the performance was occupied by the prologue. It is one of the most elaborate that Grauman has ever presented with a picture. There was dancing, some of it exceedingly clever, and old southern songs with the background of a plantation setting.

  Finally the Duncans themselves came on stage and received a tribute of applause that has rarely been equaled even in the Egyptian Theater.

  All this was preliminary to the introduction of the two girls as film stars, which was after all the event awaited.

  "Topsy and Eva" is not a long picture, and it follows the stage version to a considerable extent. It is a picture largely of gags, to which the plot, what there is of it, seems entirely incidental.

  The personality of Rosetta in her Topsy garb is capitalized in most of the gags and comedy, and much of this is quite ingenious.

  As a production, "Topsy and Eva" does not classify as anything typical of screen entertainment. Novelty is outstanding in the attractions that it possesses.

  Were it made with anybody but the Duncan Sisters as the stars it would have to be rated as a very poor picture. The continuity is choppy, and the story varies rather uncertainly at times between comedy and melodrama.

  Rosetta is funny when the comedy business allotted to her is funny. That individual and personal type of comedy which she has made familiar on the stage is frequently lost, because of the fact that pictures are a different medium, and in many respects "Topsy and Eva" holds too closely to the stage method.

  Still there are scenes scattered through the picture that are good of themselves. For one thing I thought the opening with the white stork bringing little Eva to this mundane sphere, and the black stork bringing Topsy and finding no place to settle very original. Some very clever photography was used in these sequences.

  The episode where Topsy plays Santa Claus and gets her cottony whiskers burnt on the Christmas tree, caused an uproar, as did the gag where she attempted to jump on a horse, lit on a saddle on a fence, and started doing the chute-the-chute along the top of this.

  The sympathy between Topsy and Eva that lent contrast in the stage version is not strongly brought out in the picture, and for this reason as much as anything it appears to be something of a monotone, relieved here and there with flashes of humor.

  Vivian Duncan photographs very attractively in the Eva make-up. There is promise in the work of both girls, Topsy having definite talents as a screen comedienne, I believe. But it is regrettable that their first picture was not more characteristically a motion picture.

  Gibson Gowland as Simon Legree has the most dramatic role in the picture, and is the foil for Rosetta's comedy in one slapstick scene that proves very amusing. Noble Johnson, Marjorie Daw, Nils Asther, Myrtle Ferguson and Henry Victor are others, Miss Ferguson being effective as Aunt Ophelia, and Miss Daw pleasing as the heroine Marietta.

  There are a few instances of cheap vulgarity that might just as well be eliminated in some of the gags.

  The Grauman prologue includes jubilee singers, picaninny dancers, and various specialty performers, who scored remarkable individual hits.

  Taken all in all, the show is entertaining.