Modern Screen (Dec 1940 - Nov 1941)

Record Details:

Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.

Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.

THERE'S A NEW HIGH IN HOLLYWOOD HITS BOUND TO PLEASE ALL YOU FLICKER FANS Cagney loves Sheridan in "City for Conquest." Basserman, Robinson, Best in "A Dispatch from Reuter's." for any film . . . Madeleine Carroll drives a team of half-wild horses in the picture; she did this difficult stunt herself, did not use a double . . . The scene that Lynne Overman got the greatest pleasure out of (plus a goodly number of scratches and black and blue marks) is the one in which he engages in a hand-to-hand fight with Paulette Goddard. CITY FOR CONQUEST It has been many years since this particular reviewer of films has been so thrilled and excited by a movie. That, of course, is what is jokingly referred to as climbing out on a limb — but any way you want to look at it, in his opinion it is a sock, a smash, a click, a whiz, or whatever else you can think of. The film gives you Heartbreak Town without missing a beat. It's a story of flying fists and twinkling toes, of gangsters and gals, of guys and goofs. It's everything that's good and everything that's bad. It's hokum and hilarity. It's New York. There's acting in this picture and writing and direction. And all of it is firstgrade. Jimmy Cagney is a prize-fighter who almost becomes a champ in spite of the fact that he hates prize-fighting, because he wants to be as much of a success as his girl, Ann Sheridan. And Ann wants to dance; she wants to be a star and see her name in lights. But that's not in the cards, and she winds up in a burlesque house, broke and hungry, at about the same time that Jimmy, blinded, begins to peddle papers for a living. Well, it tears your heart out to see Jimmy as the blind newsboy towards the finish of the film. But it isn't sad. That's the strength of this picture. Jimmy, with his awful finish, and Ann, with all the kicking around she's gotten, learn something. They learn that New York has a heart, too — and music, a symphony. And there are good things in the big town. Jimmy's kid brother studies hard at his piano throughout the film, and it's Jimmy's hard-earned coin that helps put the kid through. At the windup he plays a big symphony at Carnegie Hall. Now, let's hand out the laurels. Cagney and Sheridan are topnotch, and there are two brand new film actors whom you'll hear a lot from in the future — Elia Kazan and Arthur Kennedy. You didn't expect Anthony Quinn to be as good as he is here, and there's a honey of a small bit by Lee Patrick. The director is Anatole Litvak, who's become accustomed to taking bows, and he deserves a lot of them. And let's not forget young Bill Cagney, Jimmy's brother; this marks his first appearance as a film producer, but not his last; the kid knows his stuff. Directed by Anatole Litvak. — Warner Brothers. PREVIEW POSTSCRIPTS: This is Cagney's 52nd film fight but it's the first he's lost . . . Practically entire cast, as well as author, scenarist and associate producer, are New Yorkers. Even Josephine, the monkey used in the East Side hurdy-gurdy scenes, is one . . . Picture employed a number of unusual-job men; among them, a "piano-untuner," a "razor-duller" and a "wallpaper smudger" . . . Carnegie Hall set cost $12,000 . . . The Madison Square Garden set, including the rings, tunnels, lobby, aisles and dressing-rooms, cost $18,000 to build . . . Authentic scenes, photographed in New York, include Coney Island at night, approach to Williamsburg Bridge, tenements, hospitals, water front and lonesome street corner at 2 a.m. . . . Aben Kandel, author of original novel from which the film was adapted, described New York noises to composer, Max Steiner; result is the seven-minute symphony, "Song of the City," heard in the picture; 92-piece symphony orchestra plays it . . . Ann Sheridan is part Cherokee; her dancing partner, Tony Quinn, part Aztec . . . Three pairs of hose were kept on tap for Ann Sheridan at all times . . Boxing gloves worn by Cagney and his opponents weighed only 4 ounces. The reason for not using the heavy regulation type was to prevent arm fatigue on the part of the actors. ***% A DISPATCH FROM REUTER'S You'd never forgive yourself if you let the title of this one keep you away, because here's a film which completely escapes the tedium of most pictures based on facts. Besides, there's a warm, deep, human love story that you will remember for a long time. Eddie Robinson opened a lot of eyes when people saw what a fine and intelligent actor he was in "Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet." Silly, of course, because he played Shakespeare and practically everything else before he ever came to Hollywood; and again in this picture he handles a role completely different from anything he has attempted on the screen before, that is — a genuine, warm, and exhilarating character. Maybe you've already heard the story of Julius Reuter (Robinson), founder of the first international news-gathering service which still covers the world and is as well-known in Europe as our own Associated Press or International News Service. It is an exciting newspaper yarn with a lot of thrilling historical background showing how Reuter originated the idea of sending messages by carrier pigeons; how he got the idea of gathering and selling news to papers for the first time. When telegraph outmoded pigeons, he was the first man to send a news story over the telegraph. He scooped the world on the occasion of Emperor Louis Napoleon's settlement of peace in Europe and scooped Europe at the time President Lincoln was shot. It's not just thrilling excitement that makes this an outstanding film, but the heart-warming (Continued on page 15) DECEMBER, 1940 11