Canadian Film Weekly (Sep 24, 1947)

THE PICK OF THE PICTURES Vol. 12, No. 37 Possessed with Joan Crawford, Van Heflin, Raymond Massey Warners 108 Mins. HAS WIDE POSSIBILITIES, POTHNTIALITIES AS ADULT DRAMATIC FARE; STAND OUT PERFORMANCES, ACE DIRECTION. Ranking with the best cinematic treatments of mental disorders, ‘‘Possessed”’ has wide possibilities and potentialities as adult dramatic fare. It'is an intelligent treatment of impending insanity performed with artistry. Deranged to the point of collapse, Miss Crawford is initially seen at dawn in downtown LA. She collapses and is taken to the municipal hospital in a coma. Restored via drugs, Ridges, a psychiatrist, counts her case history. Under the influence of narcosynthesis, Miss Crawford tells of she -re her affair with Van Heflin while. she, as a nurse, attended Massey’s wife. Heflin does not take Miss Crawford's feelings for him seriously. Rather, he is inclined to dismiss them lightly and this leads to a severance of ties. Across the lake Massey, acquaintance to Heflin, and his invalid wife live. Massey’s wife suspects Miss Crawford of an illicit alliance with him and she constantly throws this up to the two. Heflin won’t have any part of a reconciliation. Shortly thereafter Massey’s wife is drowned. It is labelled a Suicide and dismissed by the po lice. Massey’s children come home. Geraldine Brooks, a grown-up girl, suspects Miss Crawford and her father. She makes it difficult but Massey prevails upon Miss Crawford to marry him. ; Heflin comes on the scene again and there is a resumption of their affair, with Miss Crawford suffering mental turmoil leading to lapses of memory as a result of the duplicity. She visits a medico who advises mental treatment. When she learns from Heflin that he is planning to marry Miss Brooks she kills him. From that point on her mind is a blank until she is picked up in LA. CAST: Joan Crawford, Van Heflin, Raymond Massey, Geraldine Brooks, Stanley Ridges, John Ridgely, Moroni Olsen, OREDITS: Producer, Jerry Wald; Director, Ourtis Bernhardt; Screenplay by Sylvia Richards, Ronald MacDougall; Based on a story by Rita Weiman; Photography, Joseph Valentine, DIRECTION, ~ Intelligent, GRAPHY, First Rate. PHOTO by Stanley’ REVIEWS FROM FILM DAILY, NEW YORK I Wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now with June Haver, Mark Stevens 20th-Fox 104 Mins. MONEYMAKER OF FIRST ORDER; A MUST FOR CHASING SUMMER DOLDRUMS. The only problem facing the exhibitor when he plays this topnotch entertainment is fitting the title into the marquee. Otherwise it is clear sailing and a moneymaker of the first order. If there are any Summer doldrums at the boxoffice here is just the number to cure them. It is just what the doctor ordered in the way of a light, romantic musical, Showmerchandise produced by a showman who knows every angle of the trade, what the public wants and how to give it to them, George’ Jessel’s hand is evident throughout. Story basis concerns episodes in the life of Joseph E. Howard, played by Mark Stevens. Howard wrote the famous number of the title and many more that caught on and carried him along to leail the hit parade of the gaslight era. Stevens had a way with the ladies and some lovely numbers figured in his burgeoning days in show business. First there was “Lulu Madison,” played by Martha Stewart. She sings his first number, took to him and spotted him in her act. Then there was Lenore Aubert, as “Fritzi Barrington,” a Continental import; June Haver is his girl, however, and she’s his at the finish. High fidelity to show business, its people and ways is the order here as the script traces the rise of Stevens from obscurity in a Weehawken organ salesroom to production of a click musical show. He throws it all over when Miss Aubert runs off to marry Truman Bradley. Reginald Gardner, however, a clever manipulating playwright, holds firm to Stevens’ thrown over interests, including Miss Haver, who becomes a musical star in her own right. Concluding in San Francisco where Stevens is reunited with Miss Haver, the action receives powerful stimulus from inclusion of three sock stage production numbers, CAST: June Haver, Mark Stevens, Martha Stewart, Reginald Gardner, Lenore Aubert, William Frawley. CREDITS: Producer, George Jessel; Director, Lioyd Bacon; Original Screenplay by Lewis R. Foster. DIRECTION, First Rate. GRAPHY, Excellent. PHOTO Brute Force with Burt Lancaster, Hume Cronyn, Charles Bickford Empire-Universal 98 Mins. LATEST MELODRAMATIC ADDITION TO HELLINGER LIST SHOULD PROVE SOCK BOXOFFICE NUMBER; WILL MAKE THE AUDIENCE SIT UP, SQUIRM, SHUDDER, LAUGH AND THRILL. Growing list of sock boxoffice numbers with the Mark Hellinger imprint adds another melodramatic high scorer in ‘Brute Force.” tales and prison tales. Few have ever been loaded with the bullseye material found in this one. While generally prison yarns have dealt with inmates scheming to crash out — and this one does, too — here a kaleidoscopic analysis of criminal types, reform, character studies, sadism, plotting, death, hope and fear are intermixed. ‘ Handling of the basic story does not confine itself to morbidity and seething hate that makes itself apparent at the outset. The piece has its light side, too, for humorous moments. These latter are funny, but there is an underlying feeling of apt cunning that tinge with a note of the criminal. In the tiers of cons, Burt Lancaster, Charles Bickford, Sam Levene, Howard Duff, Vince Barnett, Jack Overman, Sir Lancelot, latter a Calypso singer who gives out a cleverly concocted rhyme frequently, are all they should be. On the other side of the bars there’s Hume Cronyn, a sadistic captain of guards who is bucking to become warden. Cronyn’s is THE performance. The audience should hate him to pieces. After treating of many facets of prison life the plot settles to concentration on the inmates of R-17 who are laying plans to break out. They work in a drainpipe under construction outside the walls. When Bickford, editor of the prison sheet learns his parole is postponed he joins them. Lancaster’s plan is based on a military operation Howard Duff was in on in Italy. Diversion on one side, crash through on the other. Bickford supplies the material. Levene is caught by Cronyn and given a going over. He does not spill. Operation Crashout is launched. It is a noisy, lethal, murderous and gripping show with There have been prison . REVIEWS INFORMATION RATINGS $2.00 Per Annum H. B. GRIMES He has' been transferred from Winnipeg to Regina as resident sales and service representative of Dominion Sound Equipments’ Limited. With the company for 17 years, he is a native of Saskatoon and a graduate of the Marconi School of Radio in Montreal and the Acousti-Celotex School in Chicago. Grimes, whose new office is located at 2300 Dewdney Avenue in Regina, has been replaced in Winnipeg by R. H. Williams, senior service engineer. violent death in every scene. Jules Dassin’s direction of this part is masterful. When the smoke clears and wounds are patched, Cronyn, Bickford, Lancaster and just about everyone else, con and guard, involved in the fracas are dead. Art Smith, prison medico, the forces within caged humans delivers a brief, potent piece on that causes them to want out. Compounded without a_ dull note anywhere, “Brute Force’ will make the audience sit up, squirm, shudder, laugh and thrill. That’s what they come for, that’s what they'll get. CAST; Burt Lancaster, Hume Croryn, Charles Bickford, Yvonne De Carlo, Ann Blyth, Ella Raines, Anita Colby, Sam Levene, Howard Daff, Art Smith, Roman Bohnen, Joha Hoyt, Richard Gaines, Frank Puglia, Jeff Corey, Vince Barnett, James Bell, Jack Overman, Whit Dissell, Sir Lancelot, Ray Teal, Joy C,. Filppen, James O'Rear, Guy Beach, CREINTS: A Mark Hellinger Production; Director, Jules Dassin; reen by Richard Brooks. = sail DIRECTION, Superb. PHOTOGRAPHY, Excellent, non |