Modern Screen (Dec 1941 - Nov 1942)

MOVIE REVIEWS (Continued from page 6) SITROUX CLEANSING TISSUES SOFTER Say "Sit-True" for tissues that are as soft as a kiss on the cheek. STRONGER As strong as a man's fond embrace. Sitroux is made from pure cellulose. MORE ABSORBENT Drinks in moisture. Ideal for beauty care and a thousand and one uses everywhere. AT 5 & lOtf-DRUG & DEPT. STORES SKYLARK— AB-2 * Incredibly Claudette Colbert isn't getting enough attention from her husband, Ray Milland. So this interesting, good-looking chap, who's a guest at a drinking party in their swanky house (Brian Aherne) and who is practically overcome by the liquid hospitality, tells her she is really a "skylark" and that he wants to show her the moon. Claudette, who is obviously too smart to fall for that cheap lunar gag, decides to go skylarking anyway because she is sore at her husband for making so much money, or something, and says, "Okay, show me the moon." The drinking fellow knows she only means it in a nice way so that makes him drink more and the things he says get even crummier. Ray isn't jealous when the skylark doesn't get home till after sunup. A practical fellow, he is just burned because she has made the wife of his biggest advertising account (Binnie Barnes) jealous by running off with her boyfriend. He orders her to call up and explain everything to Binnie, whom Claudette despises. No man can do that to a Colbert, as we know. Claudette leaves her husband, and runs to Brian for legal and other assistance. She returns when Ray, as a pledge of his undying devotion, swears that he has quit his job. She leaves again when she discovers he was lying. It goes on and on: she's sailing away with Aherne on the moon; she isn't sailing away with Aherne on the moon (gets seasick trying to brew some coffee in the galley) Now, Ray's away, to South America; now there's Claudette flying after him on a plane. Skylark! It's positively an understatement! Want to know what we think's the trouble with this picture? Here's our theory: Mr. Samson Raphaelson's story started as a serial in the Saturday Evening Post. Then it was published as a novel. Then it became a play and was produced on Broadway. Maybe this thing's been carried too far. It's just a thought. — Par. P. S. The snapshots of Ray Milland and Claudette Colbert in the Fifth Wedding Anniversary scrap book are the McCoy They're pictures taken of the two together when they made "The Gilded Lily" half a decade ago . . . Ernest Cossart has played 150 butlers, 20 valets and 10 headwaiters. Can't mix a drink to save his soul and burned his trousers the one and only time he tried to press them . . . Only authentic poster among the dozens of phonies dreamed up especially for the picture is the famous pointing poster of Uncle Sam, announcing "1 Want You For The U. S. Army" . . Brian Aherne spent all his time away from the set piling up air-time in his plane . . ■ Mona Barrie, Walter Abel's movie wife, says she'd rather be known as a clothes horse than as an actress . . . Colbert, while waiting for the picture to start production, spent a week at Sun Valley and toted home a trophy for winning the slalom race down Dollar Mountain. Zigzagged neatly between the markers for three-eighths of a mile in one minute, six seconds . . . The clump of four slender birch trees in the garden scenes are really slender poles covered with bark stripped from the canoes used in "North West Mounted Police." When the set was dismantled, the bark went back on the boats . . . Butch, the dog, is a refugee from the Los Angeles Humane Society . . . Warren Hymer, screen toughie, gets butterflies in his tummy from riding on trains, street cars and subways ... A group of Cleveland girls have just announced formation of a "We Love Ray Milland" club . . . Claudette's hobby is photography. Loves fuchsia flowers and rich malts in the afternoon. Has never' fainted, writes hurriedly in large heavy letters, won't pose for iceskating art until she's had a few more lessons. Was the only member of the cast who didn't suffer mal-de-mer pangs during shooting of the storm-at-sea sequence. Said her immunity was due to a Chinese typhoon she'd once suffered through, aboard a 'round-the-world freighter loaded with a cargo of onions. DUMBO — AB-1 * After a fabulous detour through the symphonic concert hall by way of Deems Taylor in "Fantasia" and a long sightseeing trip around and around the studio with Bob Benchley in "The Reluctant Dragon," Walt Disney is back where he belongs again: in his world of the little animals which behave and talk like people. The hero of "Dumbo" is a selfdeprecating baby elephant who is sensitive about the abnormal size of his ears but who finally turns them into an aeronautical asset under the artistic impulsion of a mouse with the voice of Eddie Brophy and an inspirational sales spiel the burden of which is that every artist should have an agent. But "Dumbo" is not to be compared with "Snow White," "Pinocchio" or the unforgettable "Silly Symphonies"; its best gags are secondhand ones, quoted from previous Disney successes, and on the whole, in spite of a superficial slickness of finish, it represents a letdown from Walt's previous high standards of taste, characterization, originality and artistic integrity. All this is not to say that "Dumbo" isn't superficially amusing, with good box office potentialities. The story is that expectant Mrs. Elephant is overlooked on the stork's regular visit to the winter quarters of the circus in Florida, but later on, aboard the special train going north, he arrives inopportunely, paging Mrs. Elephant from car to car in the pained voice of Sterling Holloway, with a special delivery package. The package is Dumbo, who receives his name from his mother's supercilious friends because of the unpromising appearance he makes with his unferociously flapping ears. Dumbo's mother loves him anyway and gets into trouble with the circus authorities when she fights to protect him from teasing crowds. But her maternal faith is rewarded when Dumbo makes a circus sensation by using his phenomenal ears for wings — the world's only flying elephant. Some may find it incidentally amusing to see how many of the voice parts, which are spoken by well-known Hollywood character actors, they can identify If you are a Disney partisan, you may need something like this to help suppress your feeling of disappointment. — RKO. P. S. Disney artists did research for this one by donning make-up and joining the clowns during the circus' local per(Continued on page 12) MODERN SCREEN