Canadian Film Weekly (Sep 17, 1947)

THE PICK OF THE PICTURES | REVIEWS INFORMATION RATINGS Vol. 12, No. 36 REVIEWS FROM FILM DAILY, NEW YORK $2.00 Per Annun\ Cry Wolf with Barbara Stanwyck, Errol Flynn Wiurners 83 Mins. FAIR NUMBER FOR GENERAL AUDIDNOE HAS SUSPENSE AND UNUSUAL TWIST. Sustaining a fair degree of suspense for most of its unfoldment, this offering manages to secure a grasp upon the imagination and via a series of puzzling events evolves as a drama of unusual twists and variations. It’s a clever job of direction that was turned in by Peter Godfrey who fashioned his dramatic content in such a manner as to keep the audience guessing about the characters’ motives. Miss Stanwyck arrives at the home of her dead husband in time for the funeral. She meets Flynn who does not immediately feel friendly to her as she was the wife of his nephew. Flynn did not know of the marriage. Miss Stanwyck stands to receive a considerable inheritance. Flynn is something of a scientist with a laboratory in an unused wing of the _ house. Geraldine Brooks, Flynn’s niece, meets Miss Stanwyck and at once enlists her aid. In the early hours, sounds of scuffling and screams are heard. Miss Stanwyck determines to learn what they are about and makes a series of reconnaisance trips up dumbwaiters, over roofs. She is caught by Flynn who seems menacing. Miss Brooks dies violently. Flynn calls it suicide. Miss Stanwyck states she was driven to it. Riding about the place Miss Stanwyck finds Richard Basehart, her presumed-dead husband. He is a mental case. She returns to confront Flynn. Basehart turns up, bludgeons Flynn and demonstrates the streak of family insanity that Flynn in devious, harsh manner had been trying to shield Miss Stanwyck from. Basehart dies in an accident. There is indication of more than mere alliance between Miss Stanwyck and Flynn at the end. CAST: Barbara Stanwyck, Errol Flynn, Geraldine Brooks, Richard Basehart, Jerome Cowan, John Ridgely. CREDITS: Producer, Heary Blanke; Director, Peter Godfrey; Screenplay, Catherine Turney; Based on a novel by Marjorico Carleton; Photography, Carl Guthrie DIRECTION, Good, PHOTOGRAPHY, Good. Ciannelli Signed Eduardo Ciannelli has been signed for a featured role in Warners’ “To the Victor.” W elcome Stranger with Bing Crosby, Barry Fitzgerald, Joan Caulfield Paramount 107 Mins. SET CONTROLS FOR SOCK BIZ WITH THIS ONE; GOOD SHOW ALL THE WAY WITH CROSBY AND FITZGERALD OLICKING SOLIDLY. Gentle humor pervades the story herein. The light touch is always to the fore. To this end laughter will ring as the plot gets humorous punctuation from situations building to that pur- pose in subtle, neat constructions. Storywise the plot is an inventive, imaginative offering unfolding with ease and coherence. It is simple for the most part and includes in its various excursions the life of a smalltown doctor, romance, music, wit, characters and the able singing of Crosby. Starting in Boston, the scenario takes up with Crosby and Fitzgerald almost at once. Fitzgerald has been doctor to a small Maine town for 30 years and he engages, sight unseen, a substitute medico, so he can get off to a long contemplated vacation. Unknown to each other aboard a train, the pair get into each other’s hair in light style. On arrival they mect up and immediately Fitzgerald does not want any part of Crosby around. A deal is a deal, however, and Crosby is determined to stick it out no matter what the attitude of the doctor or the small town folk. Crosby is a good doctor, however, and his application is rewarded. Fitzgerald has an attack of appendicitis; Crosby operates skillfully. His assistant in the emergency is Joan Caulfield. First thing you know Crosby has set his cap for her. From that point on the plot boils and bubbles merrily for the most part. Crosby is accepted generally and the element that would dismiss him is foiled by its own foolishness. Lastly Crosby is triumphing over the opposition and headed for romantic fulfillment with Miss Caulfield. GAST: Bing Crosby, Barry Fitzgerald, Joan Caulfield. Wanda Hendrix, Frank Faylen, Elizabeth Patterson, Rober} Shayne. CREDITS: Producer, Sol C. Siegel; Director, Elliott Nugent; Screenplay, Arthur Sheekman, N. Richard Nash; Story, Frank Butler; Photography, Lionel Lin. doa, DIRECTION, First Rate. P HY, Fine. The Magic Bow with Stewart Granger, Phyllis Calvert Eagle-Lion 105 Mns. LIFE AND LOVES OF PAGANINI; VERY GOOD BET FOR ART SPOTS, MUSIC AUDIENCE. This cinematic biography of the musical life of Nicolo Paganini in the Napoleonic era is a good bet for the art house and other spots with audiences appreciative of the musical content. Almost wholly concerned with Paganini, there is also Tartini and the well-known Beethoven Violin Concerto Opus 61. While Stewart Granger mimes through the motions, its Yehudi Menuhin on the soundtrack supplemented by the National Symphony Orchestra. The J. Arthur Rank Production from the Gainsborough Studios is somewhat on the slowmoving side but musical interludes ably serve as diverting punctuation. Beginning in Genoa where the rising composer is hired by Miss Calvert to play outside a jail where her father is incarcerated, the story gets off on a somewhat jocular note. Violin notes drown out the escaping jailbird’s sawing through the bars. Miss Calvert, who is of the French aristocracy, has Granger play a concert in her home in Parma. They fall in love and it becomes a grand passion that is thwarted by Napoleon. Nappy wants her to marry a nobleman, if she doesn’t Granger will be roughed up, maybe done in. She deserts Granger. Later, after a highly successful tour on the continent they meet in Paris. A duel is fought by Granger and his rival. Miss Calvert being still unmarried. To save Granger she pretends affection for the other man. Still later Cecil Parker connives an engagement where Granger is to play before the Pope in the Vatican. During this, which is easily the best musical _ session, Miss Calvert has an emotional disturbance and decides Granger is for her so she sticks around and the pair are finally united. CAST: Stewart Granger, Phyllis Calvert, Jean Kent, Dennis Price, Cecil Parker, Henry Edwards, Frank Veilier, Mary Jerrold. CREDITS: Producer, R. J. Minney; Director, Bernard Knowles; Se by Manuel Komroff; Violin solos, Yehudl Menuhin. DIRECTION, Good PHOTOGRAPHY, Average. Song of the Thin Man with Willam Powell, Myrna Loy MGM 86 Mins. POTENT ENTERTAINMENT DOUBLE ACTION (AUDIENCE-EXHIBITOR) VARIETY. WILL DO TRICK EASILY. Nick and Nora are back in pursuit of criminal big game after an absence of a year-anda-half. That that absence grows on the audience and makes them fonder of these characters is an easily arrived at conclusion. Here they are back again in full stride. Watch that stride. It is a problem in deduction. The Loy-Powell combination for luring an audience athirst for a whodunit problem that in its centrifugal distribution of facts, incriminations, clues, personalities, motives and the required like, adds up to a potent entertainment. Translate entertainment in its fullest sense and you not only have a lethal drama but also an excursion into le jazz hot, psychiatry and murder plus. Into this toss material for gags and brother, you have something. Out on the town one night, Mamma and Papa Charles (LoyPowell) get themselves involved in a killing aboard a gambling ship anchored in the Atlantic off New York. The collective eyes and ears of the pair hear much, see more. Next morning a pair of newlyweds come a-calling for help. Bruce Cowling married Jayne Meadows against the wishes of her father. A wild shot brings Powell out of retirement and he proceeds to operate along his own peculiar, albeit interesting lines. First there’s prowling aboard the murder vessel. Then Miss Loy deserts her bed to trail along. Keenan Wynn pops up on the scene, delivers himself of the glossary of the jam session, enlists Powell as a slush pumper and brings the trail up to the mental sanitarium room of Don Taylor. Taylor is eliminated as a suspect. Next Gloria Grahame is done in. Hollis is brought out of his mental daze, booked to play the ship. Re-opening is a festive turnout and in the midst of the glittering gathering Powell gets his man. CAST: William Powell, Myrna Loy, Keenan Wynn, Dean Stockwell, Philip Reed, Patricia Morrison, Leon Ames, CREDITS: Producer, Nat Perrin; Director, Edward Buzzell; Screenplay, Steve areal _ Perrin; Story by Stanley rts; Photography, Charles Ro ‘ DIRECTION, Neat. _— PHOTOGRAPHY, Fine,