Picture Play Magazine (1938)

••■$« iirese matter json c, ■men t. ti st r oi I suades the discharged workers to return and save the studio for thi selves and the stockholders. The dialogue has sting and charm, acting depth and the tenderness of life, not fiction. Leslie Howan at his brilliant best as Atterbury Dodd, Joan Blondell is perfect as the girl, and Humphrey Bogart once more shows his remarka quality as a movie supervisor. "The when it' pictures "Stand-in" has the compassionate quality of "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town" by the same author. "Stand-in." — United Artists. Look far and wide this month and you'll not find any picture that touches this comedy of Hollywood life. The equal of "A Star is Born," though in a lighter mood, it has the heart-warming, compassionate quality of "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town." This is easily accounted for when we realize that Clarence Budington Kelland wrote them both. The equivalent of Mr. Deeds here is Atterbury Dodd, the efficiency expert of a group of bankers who is certain that his knowledge of mathematics can reorganize and put on a paying basis the movie studio owned by his firm. But the studio is just like any other — a hotbed of temperament, friction and politics, with Atterbury Dodd a lamb among wolves, a mathematician bewildered by emotional folk. He is even puzzled by the one person he meets who approaches sanity, a star's stand-in, Thelma Plum, who puts him right regarding the others and initiates him into many things. These two are irresistible characters, their adventures lively, original, credible. The screen offers nothing fresher and funnier than the scene where Thelma teaches Atterbury to dance by chalked squares, or when they practice jujutsu on each other, nothing more triumphantly right than when he per il p n •1 ai'l was 1 ai tl Awful Truth." — Columbia. Keyed to the vogue for fa s goofy, this is one of the best examples of the smart trend It is wilder far than Irene Dunne's "Theodora Goes Wil and marks her ultimate emergence from decorum. It mij be dangerous and disillusioning for her to emerge one farther. But the picture is entertaining. Make no mist< about that. By the time you read this it probably will the talk of your town and rolling up huge receipts eve where. In case you want to know what it's about — thi isn't much left of Ina Claire's stage play in case you i wondering— I'll tell you. Miss Dunne and Cary Grant ; a politely two-timing wife and husband with an inexhaus ble capacity for witty give and take. Sometimes they i witty for the love of it. They quarrel, divorce, and quibl for the custody of their dog, "Mr. Smith." Miss Dun wins the decision and her ex-husband is a frequent caller to see the dog. He meets there Ralph Bellamy, a slo witted admirer of Miss Dunne, and she comes in conU with the rich girl Mr. Grant intends to marry. She brea up the match while he contrives to disillusion Mr. Bellar and the latter's suspicious mother. This leaves the divorc couple free for a bedroom reconciliation and remarria next day. At least one hopes it's marriage, for the sake the censors. The picture's popular appeal is not the stoi but fast action, sharp dialogue and sudden embarrai ments. Perhaps I'm going out of my way to carp, but wish Miss Dunne wouldn't call a masseuse a "massooce "Ebb Tide." — Paramount. Photographed entirely technicolor is hardly a recommendation to a picture wh» » "Ebb Tide" is a pretentious sea story in gaudy technicolor. "The Great Garrick" is an elaborately decorated eggshell. "Live, Love and Learn" describ* an artist's problems.