Lillian Gish is Annie Laurie (Chicago Tribune 1927)

 

Lillian Gish is Annie Laurie (Chicago Tribune 1927)

Chicago Tribune – Sunday, January 27 1927 – Page 94

Lillian Gish is Annie Laurie

Lillian Gish is the demure damsel before you, and she looks like this in “Annie Laurie,” in which picture she has the role of the Scottish Joan of Arc.

***

Lillian Gish literally is Annie Laurie. Those who imagined her as a myth or legend will be amazed at the actual woman;  Miss Gish is a faithful portrayer of the real Annie Laurie, who lived centuries ago whose love and whose heroism turned the tide of Scottish history in a real life drama more powerful than any imagined by a scenarist; and whose romance has come down to the world in song of the ancient bard. “Annie Laurie” is a tremendous drama of history. It deals with the gigantic ferment and struggle in Scotland that culminated in the Glencoe Massacre.

It is all laid on actual fact. Miss Gish, as the historic daughter of Sir Robert Laurie, chief of Clan Campbell, approaches the genius of Bernhardt, but always coupled with her own ethereal charm, in the mighty drama, in which she enacts the Scottish Joan of Arc. Norman Kerry plays the hero as a chieftain of the enemy clan of MacDonald. The great battle scenes, with hordes of six foot wanders in tartans and plaids, battling with shield and claymore—the majesty of the ancient Scotch castles these all add glamor. But the charm of Lillian Gish pervades it all.

Annie Laurie – Photo Gallery

Admin note: Lillian, however, was riding on the top wave. An English company offered her the lead in “The Constant Nymph”; a great German company offered the part of Juliet: “Cannot tell you how delighted we should be, if the remotest possibility”; de la Falaise offered her the part of Joan of Arc, in a picture for which Pierre Champion, the great French authority on Joan, had prepared the scenario. To the last named, she replied that she had long been considering the part of Joan, and put the matter aside with real regret. And many wanted to write of her. Whatever she did, or was about to do, was news. A magazine, Liberty, sent a gifted young man, Sidney Sutherland, all the way to the Coast to see her. He had expected to do one, possibly two, articles, but his editors asked for more, and under the general title of “Lillian the Incomparable” continued his chapters —”reels” as he not inaptly termed them—through nine weekly instalments! On any excuse, and with no excuse at all, other than what it presented, and stood for, periodicals carried her picture. Vanity Fair published a full front-page portrait, by Steichen, nominating her “The First Lady of the Screen.”

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