Canadian Film Weekly (Feb 11, 1942)

Page 4 Canadian FILM WEEKLY * February 11th, 1942 Warners ALWAYS IN MY HEART Here’s a sur-prize package. Here’s one of those singing juvenile films with plenty of sentiment and no syrup, yet with a good story well worked out and ably played. The pictare presents a new singing star, 15-year-old Gloria Warren, who can look Miss Deanna Durbin right in the eye and take over the field left by the Winnipeg-’O-My-Heart when she grew up and got married. There are several fine musical scenes, presented in a casual and convincing way, and much lovely music of piano, voice and mass harmonica. Borah Minnevitch and his harmonica group return to pictures in this and fit in perfectly. Story deals with a jailbird father, played by Walter Huston, who wants his wife, Kay Francis, to marry millionaire Sydney Blackmer for the sake of the children. She doesn’t, of course. There’s an eventual reunion. There are a number of fine performances, an appealing one being that of a three-year-old whose name escapes us and who speaks more clearly and plays more capably than any child we've seen in some time. Because it’s so different from the roaring things of today, it’s solid war fare. Columbia Columbia CADETS ON PARADE An interesting picture for the teen-aged. Freddy Bartholomew has gone a long way back in name draw since he grew up and this picture won't boom him any. Story is about a kid that quails at everything and his disappointed father, a rough-and-ready guy from '’way back. The kid finally skips his school and tangles with Jimmy Lydon, a newsboy whose father is a wrongo. The idea gets around that Freddy has been snatched for a payoff and the newsboy’s father tries to cash in on it by demanding money. It all ends right and with Freddy resolved to get his back up hereafter. Joseph Crehan and Raymond Hatton fathers. work well as the United Artists HAYFOOT Sequel to ‘‘Tanks a Million,” the Hal Roach military streamliner, it ends as though there will be more. William Tracy is again the doughboy with the steel-trap mind who can remember everything. Joe Sawyer and Noah Beery, Jr., are his rivals as of yore. Their belligerency yields a series of embarrassing situations for Tracy but he always comes A CLOSE CALL A not too mystifying mystery about blackmail and the pseudo-daughter of millionaire planning to inherit his money. William Gargan, replacing Ralph Bellamy as Ellery Queen, plays capably and Margaret Lindsey provides her usual good support, Charles Grapewin, as the Queen pater, is here again. Ralph Morgan is the millionaire. out on top. Jimmy Gleason is the soft but hard camp commandant and Elyse Knox the daughter who favors Tracy. What there is by way of story deals with the battalion shooting match—which the hero doesn’t win. MOVIE-GO-ROUND (Jack Karr in the Toornto Daily Star—before “49th Paral lel’ and “Captain of the Clouds’’) A funny think... You pick up any film trade paper these days and you see headlines such as... “Colossal Studios will have South American locale for three pictures this year”... ‘““Magnifico Productions plan to woo Argentine with filmusicals” ... and so on. Peculiar, but Canada, which is Hollywood’s best “foreign’’ customer, has been taken for granted so completely that it is almost ignored ... and when it does come up for mention, it is very often treated in an uncomplimentary way. And you need go no further than one of the downtown theatres this week to see what we mean. In a certain picture around town, one of the characters “goes to Canada for a holiday”. . of course, means, he goes to a trading post, a week’s away from the nearest telephone where the natives are a crude set of characters who have never heard of civilization. To top it all, the sequence is used for comedy. No one will deny that there is this side of Camadian life, but to make all Canadian scenes backwoods in the movies is about as sensible as to film~ all United States sequences in the hills of . which, : journey, Kentucky. At the moment we can’t recall any picture which has shown this country with any semblance of modernity whatever. So, while Hollywood is busily engaged in showering gifts on a South American sweetheart, it seems to have forgotten that there is still a much-neglected friend in the north who likes a bouquet tossed in its direction once in a while, too. THE CHICAGO SUN (Part of a column on inept endings by Wolfe Kaufman.) Remember this. Whether the acting is good or not, is important. Ditto all down the line. But the writing is still the most important base. It always astonishes me when so-called movie critics rave and rant about everything in the film and don’t mention the writer, or mention him casually at the tag end. These are the same critics who say ‘Maxwell Anderson’s new play opened at the such and such theater last night.” Or who say “Elliott Paul’s new novel was published yesterday.” But they forget that the movie, too, had to be written. MISSION TO MOSCOW (A footnote in the book by Joseph E. Davies, former Ambassador from the United States to the Soviet Union. Simon and Schuster, NY) When Ambassador Bullitt established the Embassy in Spazzo House, he arranged one of the large rooms for the showing of moving pictures. It was most helpful in affording contacts with both the diplomatic corps and with government officials. Will Hays continued to be most co-operative and provided news reels regularly. They would be brought in by courier. Whenever movies are shown it is always “open house” for the whole American colony as well as for the diplomatic corps. The colony certainly apreciated these showings. In fact everyone did. They are quite an institution. It would not have been possible but for the co-operation and fine helpfulness of the moving-picture industry and the co-operation of Will Hays. It gave many Americans a great deal of pleasure in Soviet Russia, and it aided the mission substantially in its contacts. It’s a worthy followup for “Tanks,” which was well received. THE LION’S ROAR (In an article about Judy Garland called “Judy’s Life of Song.’’) But her greatest thrill, was to come during the making of “Babes on Broadway.” Lord Halifax, Ambassador from Great Britain, visited the studio. Judy was asked to sing for him. She remembered a cold, bleak monning when she was on a program broadcast to England. It was six a.m. and only the pianist and technicians were in the studio. She thought of the bombs and terror and devastation headlined in the morning papers. Her lips trembled as she sang a new song into the microphone that would carry it far across the seas to the war-torn land. are And so when she stood up before Lord Halifax, the song again sprang from her lips: “Don’t give up, Tommy Atkins Be a stout fella’— Chin up, cheerio, carry on. Keep a stiff upper lip ~ When you're in doubt, fella! Chin up, cheerio, carry on. For the sun's sure to smile On your bright little isle— So hang on to your wits And you'll tum the blitz on Fritz. There’s a whole world behind you Shoutin’—stout fella! Chin up, cheerio, carry on! Lord Halifax rushed to embrace her when the song was ended.