The Moonstone

The conversion of Wilkie Collins' famous novel into a moving picture film interested us greatly. Now in this very fine film, gorgeous with oriental drapings and costumes, we seemed, as we watched its progress on the screen to be breathing the very atmosphere that Collins created. Very exciting, very mysterious and very fascinating. It is quite the thing to expect lively and accurate Western dramas from the Selig studio, but it is a far cry indeed from the hurly-burly of the great untamed American West to the mysticism of the Orient, yet the drama is quite as successful, and so far as one may judge who is unaccustomed to the manner of living there, the details seem to have been worked out with quite as close fidelity to facts as has been shown in other dramas. Even though the Orient is supposed to be best represented by mystery, there is stir enough in this picture to keep the audience up to the highest pitch. To be sure, the scene changes to London, and one is disposed to think that the details of the London scene are less faithfully rendered. Apart from this, the setting is splendid and the scene showing the conflict in the car of a balloon far up among the clouds is highly sensational. In this film, as in many others recently made, Selig shows that he has an eye for the gorgeously effective and magnificent in spectacle. He is marking himself out as the spectacular producer par excellence. He dresses his pieces superbly, and they are well photographed and judiciously tinted. Moreover, he is paying greater attention to the acting part, a respect in which some American film makers have hitherto been somewhat deficient. The picture was followed with real interest by a crowded house. It adds another laurel to the many that Selig has recently gained as a famous manufacturer of moving picture films. – The Moving Picture World, June 19, 1909