The City of Promise

Cecilia Loftus is featured in this three-part picture as its heroine, a country girl who has acted "Rosalind" in Mayville and comes to the great city to be an actress. The plot follows a well-worn path and we think it will be fairly popular, but much more could have been made of it with fresher deveIopment and with broader, less stagy scenes; it is cramped into too small a space and lacks the atmosphere without which it fails of being truly convincing, although its business is all probable enough. Then the girl's father or perhaps uncle (the relationship is none too clear) spoiled the homespun feeling in the home scenes; he is a city man. The acting of Miss Loftus before the camera is fair; she is good in human moments, but intruded burlesque business in the chorus girl scene that decidedly didn't agree with her acting of Rosalind, for example. Her work in moments of transition is not sure as yet. She is ably supported and the picture makes a very fair offering. - The Moving Picture World, July 4, 1914