Film Fun (1928 - 1942 (assorted issues))

YE EDITOR GOES TO YE MOVIES The Trail, of ’98 A Gold Rush Hour BATTERING, blasting Behe¬ moth of a movie mellerdrammer burst loose on the New York screen the other night. Its name is “The Trail of ’98.” Get out your calendar pad now, you namby pamby galoots and galootesses, and make arrange¬ ments to see this M-G-M epic of the Klondike. V’nu will see the steel sinews of mighty men breaking under the lash of polar cold and gruelling toil; you will see the soul of a beautiful wom¬ an tried with firewater and gold dust. Brothers, you will see life in the raw (as distinguished from the present rah-rah variety) among the huts of Dawson City, the capitol of the bo¬ nanza district. Dolores del Rio is the girl. Ralph Forbes is the boy. Their struggle for the perishable powder that is called gold dust runs along amid stupendous settings. And in the end they conquer. There are shots strung through the film that chill and thrill one’s heart: The snow slide which buries count¬ less weary prospectors ; the torn and tumbling waters of White Horse Rapids; the back-breaking, bone¬ grinding Chilkoot pass. If every¬ thing else in the film were terrible, these three views of unbridled, ber¬ serk nature would be worth the price of admission. There are things in “The Trail of ’98” about which anyone might quib¬ ble, but they pale into insignificance beside the vitality of its achieve¬ ments. See this one, folks, if you have to sell the heifer. The Count of Ten D own and Out (~AUR good old Ray of sunshine, ^ Charlie, is on the job again as the chief boob-of-the-month — a dumb benny who’s gotten into the scrap game and finds to his dismay that ignorance is blisters! When his manager, the sprightly James Gleason, returns from a busi¬ ness trip, he finds his charge dressed up like a dude from sleek hair to puppy-blankets (sometimes known as spats). Cherchez la familiar femme. A marriage ensues and the girl (Jobyna Ralston) and family proceed to spend Charlie’s every penny. After his disastrous Big Fight which he enters with a broken mitt to get money for the little wife, he dis¬ covers that the mazuma was needed to pay a gambling debt of the girl’s brother. But she’s exonerated in the end and everything turns out O. K. for the last long smile. A fight picture which is notable for the fact that despite his winning ways the hero loses his big battle . . . Fair enough, if any guy could be as dumb as Charlie’s supposed to be. The Derby tips this month toward the amiable face of W. C. Fields, that quizzical phiz which decorates so many of Paramount’s funniest pic¬ tures. His latest wow is “Tillie’s Punctured Romance,” a yarn of the Big Top at the Front. As the ring¬ master of the war-weary circus, he sets about making the multitudes happy amid the whizz and whoop of shells, and demonstrates ever and again that while man may now be successfully inoculated against nearly all human ills, he will never be im¬ mune from catching it from his wife. Leeion of the Condemned America’s Spad Boy \\T AKE up and meet a pair of ’ * automobile heaters now being introduced to our palpitating multi¬ tudes by Paramount. Fay Wray and Gary Cooper are the hot stuff con¬ cerned. You’ll get your optics soothed and sweetened when you ob¬ serve the close up neck work of this team of pash peddlers. The story that carries them along is of the war. It is supposed to be a companion piece to “Wings,” and while the flying is not quite so scorching the lip-lapping is more so. Gary, in love with a. girl (Fay Wray) in Paree, finds her in the arms of another man. Desperate youth, love sick and sore, joins the French Flying Corps, anxious to be on the finale end of a businfiss-like bullet. He is assigned to take a spy far into enemy territory and set him down. The spy arrives at the field preparatory to the flight. And who do you guess it is? None other than the great white Wray. Drammer, suspenders, love interest! Hot Dawg! They fly into Germany and the trouble starts. Fay is left all alone to learn important secrets. Some¬ one evidently told her: Sneak and ye shall find. But she speaks out of turn and is arrested, sentenced to death, tied to a post with the firing squad squadding in front of her. And then? Out of the eastern sky pour allied planes and allied bombs. What ho! The Fay is saved in the nick of time. Don’t miss it! It’s a real “love and learn” picture. Dressed to Kill Lowe and Behold f ANOTHER murder-mystery-mellerdrammer zooms onto the {Continued on page 58) Page 23