Motion Picture Magazine (Aug 1928-Jan 1929)

r m*mmmmmmm* \ \ ^ Current Pictures THE FIFTY-FIFTY GIRL \/0U will like Bebe Daniels' new picture. It is lively and funny, and particularly becoming to Bebe. As the title suggests, she is one of those independent gals, who contend that a man can't do anything she couldn't do. She even gets into a fierce argument about it with a strange young man on the train, and tells him she'll never have to depend on any man for protection. Imagine her embarrassment when she finds she's inherited one-half of a coal mine, and this same young man has inherited the other half. They go out to dig for coal together, and he does the woman's work and she does the man's — that is, until she gets too scared by various evil goings-on about the place to do much but try to stop her teeth from chattering. This should be very satisfactory to all gentlemen, as they win a complete moral victory in the end. Meanwhile, there are a lot of laughs, Bebe wears some nifty clothes, and the proceedings are helped on by the pleasant idiocies of William Austin. James Hall, he of the very blue eyes, is the boy who proves the supremacy of the male. NO QUESTIONS ASKED /T'S gotten so that yells of joy go up from the audience when Buster Collier appears, so Warner Brothers have put him in a fairly amusing comedy about some newlyweds. Tbese children have been turtle doves for almost a year, and their granddad is going to give them a handsome sum of money if they complete a year of married life with no quarrels. Otherwise, it goes to an unwedded and very covetous cousin. This disagreeable fellow looks about for some experienced homewrecker to tempt his cousin. And Margaret Livingston, with her years of practise, gets the job. Margaret gives an exhibition of non-stop vamping that would cause any man to haul off and give her a good sock. That's what she gets in the end, and the children get the .cheque. Most of this is fairly entertaining, and to silence any complaints there are reels of Andre de Beranger swooning over various exotic and exquisite perfumes more ecstatically than he has ever swooned before. Audrey Ferris is most attractive, but they had better put a weight clause in her contract before things go too far. THE MAGNIFICENT FLIRT yHIS is a story of the Lavernes — mother and daughter — and the moral is, Don't let mother stay out all night, or you'll never get a husband. Men are still old-fashioned. Loretta Young, very delicate and sweet, plays a good little daughter who goes to bed when her mother is just getting up for the night. She loves the nephew of the man her mother has a more experienced eye on, but neither can make any headway until mama traps her man into matrimony, thus convincing him that she's not a notorious woman after all. Is that perfectly clear? This is supposed to be a smart, subtle, sophisticated, and Menjouian French comedy, but it doesn't quite come off. True, Albert Vino imitates Menjou conscientiously, though he hasn't Menjou's charm. And Florence Vidor is seen in the bath-tub. And there are lots of hints, plants, paradoxes, and other "touches" dear to the director's heart. But there is such a display of modern interior decorating and prismatic photography that you can hardly keep your mind on the story. I deplore all these kaleidoscopic shots, this dizzy, fading, trick photography, when there's no possible necessity for it. It distracts the mind and strains the eyes. HIS TIGER LADY Pj/HOEVER thought of dressing Adolphe Menjou up in a Maharajah's turban and having him wear the same expression for five or six reels, must have had a grudge against our Adolphe. None of the genial little subtleties for which he is so justly famous have a chance against these odds. It is a slightly idiotic story anyway, about a feline sort of Duchess very sinuously played by Miss Evelyn Brent. Adolphe, who is just a poor super of the Gaiety, loves this unattainable lady. So he dons his stage costume and masquerades as a Hindu in order to get an introduction— since Hindus are accepted everywhere with nothing but their turbans as credentials. The Duchess' caprice is throwing her gloves into a tiger's cage and asking her current lover to go in and get them for her. For this rite Adolphe puts on a liontamer s costume, but that's not much more successful than the ^ , u WltS a [ace,Jthat dePends so much on its expression, Adolphe really should not go in for these impassive roles They cramp his style and do him a genuine injustice.' f. b.— He got the gloves— but the tiger had died during the 62