Picture Play Magazine (Mar-Jul 1929)

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Continued from page 71 Boy," which isn't strange at all. I mean the title. The picture is, though. You see, it's a bedroom farce ! Lest this alarm you, permit me to assure you that Davey has ample chance to do his stuff, including lisping The Lord's Prayer and indulging in precocious dialogue. He is supposed to be the son of estranged parents on the point of becoming divorced. The sister of the wife agrees to kidnap the child and keep him from his father. Missing her train, she takes the child to the deserted apartment of his father's lawyer, where the latter 's parents appear and cause complications by summoning their son to explain his "marriage." Though far from novel, all this has movement and frequent dialogue, together with a charming performance by Betty Bronson, who is delightful whether she speaks or not, but more so when she does. Gertrude Olmsted is the mother of Sonny Boy, John T. Murray the father, and Edward Everett Horton the lawyer. If infant stars appeal, you should see Davey Lee by all means, but more on account of the child than the picture. Woof! Woof! "Wolf Song" isn't nearly as vigorous as the title sounds. Indeed, it has no vigor at all, but is tedious. Why this is so, with two such interesting players as Gary Cooper and Lupe Velez in the cast, is unfortunate. But the chief reason is the comparative absence of a story. Another is the feebleness of what there is of one. Mr. Cooper is Sam Lash, a trapper, who hastily leaves his native Kentucky to escape the ire of the father of a girl, and sallies forth into the uncharted forests with his companions. It is all supposed to happen in* 1848. You feel that some one responsible for the picture believed it to be terribly picturesque and elemental. But it succeeds in being as artificial as a costume film in which the characters wear powdered wigs. When the roistering woodsmen reach California, Sam Lash falls in love with Lola Salazar, a -proud don's daughter, and they elope. No sooner are they married than Sam is torn between fidelity and the lure of the open spaces. So he deserts Lola for the wolf song of the trappers, but eventually returns humbly -to her. There you have the story. It is told to the accompaniment of a great deal of singing, a male chorus obliging with the song that tempts Sam Lash to leave Lola, and the girl herself repeating her sentimental air whenever a guitar is handy. Neither the voice of Miss Velez nor the song improves Tke Screen in ReViextf with repetition. Mother Nature really gives more to the picture than her children. The panorama of mountain and forest is beautiful. A Reluctant Crook. Douglas MacLean, last seen in "Soft Cushions," returns to the screen after too long an absence in "The Carnation Kid," and incidently makes his debut as a dialogue comedian. He is excellent, and the picture is diverting. Its novelty lies in the light, amusing treatment given a grim theme — the underworld. Mr. MacLean is Clarence Kendall, a timid typewriter salesman, who is mistaken for a murderous gunman by the gang that hires him to terrorize the town of Chatham. Clarence Kendall's innocent carnation is what causes the mix-up of identities. The farcical complications are many and I found them all rather ingenious, especially the scene where a large shipment of a noiseless machine gun turns out to be typewriters. The considerable dialogue is agreeably delivered by Frances Lee, Lorraine Eddy, William B. Davidson, and that always interesting denizen of the movie underworld, Francis McDonald. The Noises of New York. "Speakeasy" is a melodrama, in dialogue, of a newspaper office, the prize ring, and the fringe of New York's underworld. Boldly acted, it is not without interest, but it is singularly devoid of thrills for so straightforward a picture. It begins when Alice W oods, a reporter, offers to obtain the statement from Martin, a prize fighter, other reporters failed to get. She traces him to a speakeasy, is rebuffed, but persists until she engages him in conversation and wins his trust. Tricked by his manager, he loses the championship and is on his way to the dogs when he is brought to his senses by Alice, regains the championship and wins the girl's promise to marry him. Additional plot comes from the menacing attentions of the fighter's manager to Alice, the murder of an old musician in the speakeasy, and a raid on the place. Various phases of life in New York are shown, including the crowds at Madison Square Garden, the race track and in the subway, all with appropriate sound, most of which actual New Yorkers try to avoid. Two newcomers, Paul Page and Lola Lane, play «the leading roles, without causing any excitement in this quarter, and H. B. Walthall, Helen Ware, and Sharon Lynn are some of the others. A Hard-hearted Son. Ricardo Cortez makes a briefly audible debut in "The Younger Generation," and displays an excellent voice which should be heard at greater length. The picture is a sentimental story of Jewish life, written by that arch-purveyor of heart throbs, Fannie Hurst. It relates the story of an East Side boy who becomes successful as a dealer in antiques, taking his family with him uptown, only to spurn them later. In the end he is left alone in his Park Avenue home, without family and without friends. It is an unsympathetic role for Mr. Cortez, but he does with it all that could be expected. Lina Basquette is his sister, whose marriage to a childhood sweetheart causes her wealthy brother to turn her out of the house. Rex Lease is the song writer she marries, while Jean Hersholt and Rosa Rosanova are the parents. All have their fling with dialogue. Loud Speaker. Like the proverbial taste for olives, one's enjoyment of Texas Guinan has to be cultivated. In "Queen of the Night Clubs" she is brought to the screen by Vitaphone, and you may thank the contrivance for enabling you to hear her. Perhaps you won't hand out any thanks at all. If so, then I'm with you, kid, with a brickbat in each hand. Her invasion of the screen, luckily brief, has no justification except for the publicity attached to her name as a figure in the night life of New York. Her qualifications as an actress are nil, and as a photographic subject she is hardly alluring. However, her Vitaphone voice is strong enough to compete with the roar of the Deluge in "Noah's Ark," so perhaps Miss Guinan is not niggardly in her gift to the screen after all. The picture is a machine-made addition to the many night-club films already seen. But at least it has the saving grace of plausibility in presenting Tex Malone as the mother of the leading man, instead of his sweetheart or daughter. He is suspected by Tex, the night-club hostess, of killing her business partner, but in one of those courtroom scenes the "expression of guilt on the face of another man in a flash-light photograph taken at the time of the murder, is the means of bringing mother and son together. Eddie Foy, Jr., is unusually natural, as the son, and Lila Lee is strikingly handsome, as the girl who unwittingly causes all the shooting. On the Erie Canal. "The Girl on the Barge" is a goodbad picture that touches both extremes firmly. It begins well, but ends with a storm in the studio tank. Continued on page 100