Canadian Film Weekly (May 31, 1944)

IT'S ALWAYS FAM WRATHER WHEN @0OD SHOWMEN AND 600D SHOWS GET TOGETHER! Vol. 3 (ADVT.) “PL rpyounl [UUM EC The Lowdown on the Production and Distribution of the Best Shows in Town! EXTRA PLAYING TIME IS THE ORDER OF THE DAY WITH PARAMOURT PROBUCT! Columnist Praises “Going MMs y Way” -—— Barbara Stanwyck returns *to the Paramount roster to take her place alongside Fred MacMurray and Edward G. Robinson in “Double Indemnity.” Sizteen-year-old Diana Lynn, who, with Betty Hutton and Eddie Bracken, helped to make “The Miracle of Morgais Creek” the funniest picture in the last decade, duplicates her fine performance in ‘‘Our Hearts Were Young and Gay.” This is part of a double column story written by a Boston columnist whose articles appear in twenty leading Metropolitan newspapers across the United States. By BILL CUNNINGHAM When the lights went up in the projection room, it was obvious that everybody had been crying a little. My right eye had been Jeaking out of the outside corner. . . I tried to get it wiped before the lights came on, but the best I could do was a sort of slippery smear with the thumb. It was the preview of a movie—Bing Crosby’s new one. The name Js “Going My Way.” It’s a happy little story, but here and now is the prediction that it’s going to be one of the smash hits of the year, if not of all time. That’s what they thought they were making—a happy little story—but when the hardboiled of Hollywoed ran it through at the finish, they evidently felt like those English farmers who swear that they saw the Cross of Christ shining clear in the sky during a recent alr raid. This remarkable picture, in which Bing Crosby plays the ae of a young Roman Catholic priest, plays it boyishly, athletically and musically, hit them so hard that the awe was almost holy. They pulled it out of the release lists, rushed it overseas to our fighting men and will release it carefully, and even reverently, all over this country at later dates. It'll be playing your town soon, If you see it, I will guarantee that you'll feel good for a week, and although there isn’t a sad moment in it if you can sit through it without reaching for a handkerchief, you’d better see a doctor, for something you need, and used to have, is missing. . . There ought to be a special corner in the subterranean hot-spot for people who tell you how it all comes out, and that’s no intention of this current thesis. But there’s not even a moral law against telling how it begins. Bing, as Father Chuck O’Malley, is sent as curate to St. Dominick's, a run-dewn parish in the New York slums. . . He promptly scandalizes his new superior by appearing in a sweat shirt and later the baseball uniform of the St. Louis Browns, by singing old school songs over the telephone te his old pal, Father O’Dowd (Frank McHugh), by spilling pipe ashes on the floor, by hopping a hedge in his clerical attire, and by playing popular music on the Plano with a boogle-woogie left hand. In fact, old St. Dominick’s hadn’t received such a jolt in 40 years. .. And that’s all it is, but out of it comes two characterizations you won't forget for a long time, and a mew career. The two characterizations are Barry Fitzgerald’s Father Fitzgibbon and Bing’s Father O'Malley. The new career is Crosby, as a serious actor. He sings in this one. He sings “Silent Night” and “Adeste Fideles” for the first time on the screen. . . But {t’s his serious acting that is the picture’s revelation. This so impressed the producers that the King of Crooners has been signed to a new ten-year contract, without the usual options. The voice undoubtedly will be used as long as it lasts, but this picture found something new in the man. And if you wonder why I’m spilling over about a piece of commercial screen fare, the first reason, I reckon is, because I have known Crosby, off and on, through the years, from the days when he was merely one-third of a slap-happy male trio, carolling the likes of ‘‘Mississippi Mud” as a filler-in with Paul Whiteman’s band. . . I knew him when he had nothing and after he had everything, and he was just the same guy... There’s nothing you can de but cheer for a guy like that, and wish that the world had more like him. But the other, and maybe greater, reason is that we need such emotions as this picture brings.. The clean, the decent, belief in God, respect for ideals, sympathy, kindness and the application of common sense to whatever perplexes us. It’s no compliment to the human race that even hardened sinners creep closer to religion in time of great trial. The craven turn holy when scared. The national trend in this line is marked by emphasis in writing, in the movies, the radio, on sacred and serious themes. We're seeing a lot of movies featuring the religious motif. We’Jl see more. “Going My Way” undoubtedly falls within this general category, and may have come out of that type of reflection at the source, still probably it would have made its appeal in any sorts of times, and, possibly, too, if the actors had worn different sorts of habits. WATCH FOR PARAMOUNT’S TWENTY-FIFTH CANADIAN ANNIVERSARY Paulette Goddard’s latest picture for Paramount is “J Love a Soldier,” in which she has for leading man Sonny Tufts—the fighting Marine in “So Proudly We Hail”’ Paulette dresses in official welders’ garb for her part in the picture —at the request of the Safety Council. Marjorie Reynolds, next to be seen in “Bring on the Girls,” in which she appears with Veronica Lake, Sonny Tufts, Hddie Bracken, Johnny Coy and a host of others. This is a Technicoloured musical about the world’s richest young man, ; No. 6