National Board of Review Magazine (Jan 1939 - Jan 1942)

Junior Department FOLLOWING release of the 4-Star Clubs' and Young Reviewers' choices of the year's Ten Best Films, many newspaper notices were of interest, giving the reactions of columnists. A writer for the Washington Post notes that, "By some strange quirk of the juvenile mind, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde finished second. Which goes to show. Precisely what, I wouldn't know." The comment of Miss Amy H. Croughton, reporting in the Rochester, N. Y. Times-Union is in a different vein. "There will always be a mass public for motion pictures made up of persons who resent being forced to bring intelligence to bear on what is shown on the screen. . . . For them are made the films which make as much sense seen backwards as forward. . . . The high caliber of films in the list of "10 Best" voted by the Young Reviewers is a striking tribute to the work of education in motion picture appreciation which is being carried on by schools and libraries all over the country. Undoubtedly it still is true that a considerable section of the movie public has a 12 -year-old I.Q. but certainly these young people in the schools have little to do with swelling its numbers." The Young Reviewers on "SUNDOWN" The opening of two of Miss Gene Tierney's films in New York has raised a rather challenging question in connection with younger filmgoers. Her pictures were lavish pretentious films, studded with beautiful scenery and dramatic posing but also revealing, deep within their structure, theatricality which today can only be used successfully in broad burlesque of the old mellers. The films were sumptuous phonies and the newspaper reviewers have had a spirited holiday in conjuring up excoriating encomiums. Miss Tierney was deemed the inspiration for the ultimate in weltschmerz by the "N. Y. Times" and her film, Sundown, was singled out as one of the ten worst offenders in a listing of those films whose pretentiousness was in remotest proportion to good taste, pictures whose promise was least fulfilled. The Young Reviewers saw the picture Sundown, and the following report will simply try to show how much the children were aware of the phoneyisms and to what extent the movie's makers were able to take in their audience. On their ballots, it was voted very good. Replying to the form questions, they all appreciated learning the strange tribal customs and the rough colonial life in British East Africa. The story, they said, wasn't flawless but it was exciting enough; only one voter confessing an inability to understand all of it. They were also greatly impressed with the grand-opera arias of eloquent flag-waving which were dragged in rather rudely and highlighted to the hilt. They called this fine acting — done with spirit and great force. The message of the picture, strongly pro-British, was received with appreciative solemnity by the children. In a more routine vein, they also praised the picture because the love-making was largely omitted, the fighting was aplenty, and the hero got killed for a change. On these counts, they endorsed the picture. Nevertheless, the Reviewers did detect much of the artificiality which so engrossed the adult critics. The following statements by various Young Reviewers at the discussion prove this: "When Gene Tierney was in her house, it was overdone; I don't expect a house like that in the middle of the desert. . . . The outpost was overdone — they don't have posts like that. ... I couldn't imagine anything like that big cave and slaves. I think it was behind the times. . . . The church was too overdone. It was all right to show it was bombed, but I thought it was going to drop any minute. ... In the advertising to see this movie, it said that "men fought over her to get a burning kiss from her lips," and I didn't see any fighting. . . . Gene Tierney looked too dressedup — most of the natives had shorts and she had flowing gowns — and on top she