Modern Screen (Dec 1954 - Dec 1955)

Christmas is FOR THE YOUNG . . . the young in heart, that is And you can capture the true Christmas spirit for lots and lots of kiddies this year by bringing along these fine Dell Comics wherever you go from now till Christmas. Bound to make you extra welcome and popular with the young ones these gay and colorful comics, punch-out and coloring books cost only pennies but will make a true Santa of you — someone special whose visits won't soon be forgotten. fOn/y 25CeacM a Atititfstmns 20 Parents! Be sure to look for this seal — it's your guarantee of good clean fun only at newsstands everywhere DELL COMICS ARE GOOD COMICS THE COUNTRY GIRL Apparently the wonder of Bing Crosby never ceases; he outdoes himself in The Country Girl, a drama based on Clifford Odets' play. And Grace Kelly, formerly a golden glamour girl, is subtle, complex and extremely convincing as his longsuffering, devoted wife. The story: William Holden, dynamic BroadVay director, wants to audition Crosby for a musical drama even though producer Anthony Ross calls Crosby a has-been who drinks too much. Crosby auditions well, is signed for the part but reads lines badly during rehearsal. In a man-to-man way he tells Holden that Grace is to blame for his lack of drive, his uncertainty. Naturally, Holden begins to resent Grace's interference and treats her with increasing contempt. He finds out later that Crosby — a weak, sick man — has been handing him a pack of lies. It's a poignant, beautifully acted drama, startlingly real. — Para. CARMEN JONES The music is from Bizet's famous opera, the book is by Oscar Hammerstein and the result is wonderful. Dorothy Dandridge as Carmen — moody, passionate, a femme fatale — works in a parachute factory down south. Her prey is Harry Belafonte, a handsome young soldier headed for flying school. He resists Carmen manfully, but not for long, and pretty soon he has left his girl (Olga James) and his honor behind to flee to Chicago with Carmen and hide out in a tawdry room. Carmen feels boxed in — so she drops Belafonte for Joe Adams, heavyweight boxing champ, who has all of Chicago and much of its money to play with. Wildly jealous, Belafonte hounds her to death. The story is a classic tragedy; this CinemaScope version is classic, too. The cast (which features Pearl Bailey), the sets, the singing of Hammerstein's brilliant lyrics are all charged with vitality and excitement. — 20th-Fox. THREE RING CIRCUS Here are Martin and Lewis again — much less mad but often hilarious. Discharged from the Army, Lewis joins up with a circus. He wants to be a clown but the only opening is for a lion tamer. Martin tags along and when his eyes light on Zsa Zsa Gabor (of the high-flying trapeze) his work is cut out for him — temporarily. Joanne Dru owns part of the circus arid her kind of love is more solid. The circus is a wonderful background for Lewis' really wistful humor. Terrified, he's shot from a cannon, locked in a cage with lions, painfully embarrassed when his awkwardness as a propman steals the spotlight from an aerialist. In an almost Chaplinesque way he works toward clowndom where his woebegone make-up, his humane attempt to make a little paralytic girl laugh add moments of dignity to an otherwise simply entertaining film. Technicolor. — Para. BLACK WIDOW There are all these jaded New Yorkers (like theatrical producers and great stars) living rather peaceably in their swank penthouses when along comes a small, innocent, intense young writer named Peggy Ann Garner and those jaded New Yorkers start falling apart. Peggy is so open and open minded and all that everybody wants to help her. The question is : what rat helped her hang herself in Van Heflin's bathroom? Heflin is a theatrical producer married to Gene Tierney and while Gene is away he plays father to Peggy, lets her use his apartment as a workshop. In the apartment above live Ginger Rogers, a star, and her grateful husband, Reginald Gardiner. Ginger doesn't like Heflin's carryings-on. But he can't help it if Peggy pursues him. This kid Peggy gets around — before the hanging, that is. Who hanged her? Detective George Raft figures that out. CinemaScope. — 20th-Fox. PHFFFT! Only unfunny thing about this movie is the title which sounds even worse than it reads. Aside from that, Phffft! is a delightful comedy about more or less ordinary people living up to their new roles of gay divorcees. Judy Holliday, TV writer, is bored with Jack Lemmon, attorney, and vice versa. After eight years of marriage they can't live with each other, but it turns out they can't live with anybody else either. Lemmon's bachelor friend, Jack Carson, converts him into a gadabout (with sportscar, weskit and wolf whistle) and sets him loose on Kim Novak who not only bewilders but scares Lemmon stiff. Judy, meanwhile, invests in a siren wardrobe, determined to offer herself up to whichever bidder bites. But she keeps yearning for the comforting boredom of her ex-mate. Quick, funny characterizations and clever dialogue (by George Axelrod, author of The Seven Year Itch) make a slim plot seem meaty. — Col. UNCHAINED In 1941 a man named Kenyon Scudder opened The California Institute for Men at Chino. It was a revolutionary event in penal history. Fifteen hundred criminals moved into Chino which had no gun towers, no concrete wall, no armed guards — and no bars. Instead, it offered dorms, vocational training, picnic grounds for visitors, a self-governing council. Heaven — except no prison ever is. Unchained was filmed at Chino. It's based on fact but achieves the rounded drama of fiction. Its main character is Steve Davitt (Elroy Hirsch) arrested for nearly killing a man he thought had robbed him. Now he wants out, but he comes to realize that escape is more than a personal affair. It involves all the prisoners, endangers the continued existence of Chino itself. Dramas of other men striving toward rehabilitation also unfold. With Barbara Hale, Chester Morris, Todd Duncan. — Hall Bartlett Prod.