Canadian Film Weekly (Dec 29, 1948)

THE PICK OF ]| THE PICTURES || pe ee Let’s Live a Little. with Robert Cummings, Hedy Lamarr International Film Distributor 85 Mins. SMARTLY PRODUCED COMEDY THAT HAS THE STUFF TO MAKE AUDIENCES LAUGH. What makes people laugh is something that a lot of producers try to inject into their films. Robert Cummings and Eugene Frenke have the formula down pat in “Let’s Live a Little.” Frolicking through the slapstickery and maybe a few subtler comic elements, Cummings as the star is fully aware of what the audience wants, delivers it. Receiving its impetus from the harum scarum spectacle of modern life as it is lived by people in the advertising business, the story involves Cummings first with Anna Sten, passionate proprietress of a perfume-cosmetic establishment, who is on the verge of signing a new ad pact with Cummings’ firm. But the chase is too much for Cummings. He is taken off the account and assigned to promoting the literary effort of Hedy Lamarr, a psychiatrist. She has written a tome called “Let’s Live a Little’ in which she advocates the care and cultivation of calm nerves. But Cummings constantly hears telephones ringing and maintains his mile a minute pace until he finally becomes Miss Lamarr’s patient. Of course he falls in love with his doctor and there is consternation evidenced by Robert Shayne, Miss Sten and it boils up to a point where Cummings listening to the radio hears himself described by Miss Lamarr in an interview as a guinea pig. Quite annoyed at this statement. Cummings turns to Miss Sten There is some angry cold creani slinging but Cummings falls for her suggestion that they marry. On learning of this Miss Lamarr becomes a case herself and she retires to a country lodge to get over it. Shayne, Miss Lamarr’s colleague, takes charge, tells Cummings how to run the book campaign. This attitude forthwith brings Cummings together with Miss Lamarr, Shayne with Miss Sten. CAST: Hedy Lamarr, Robert Cummings, Anna Sten, Robert Shayne, Mery Treen, Henry Antrim, Norma Varden, Curt Bois. : CREDITS: Producers, Robert Cumm'ngs, Eugene Frencke; Director, Richard Wallace; Screenplay, Albert J. Cohen, Jack Harvey; A United California Production; Photography, Ernest Laszlo. DIRECTION, Effective, PHOTOGRAPHY, Good, Kiss the Blood off My Hands with Burt Lancaster, Joan Fontaine, Robert Newton. Empire-Universal 79 Mins. BRUTAL STUDY OF A. LOW, MEAN CHARACTER. IF AUDIENCES WANT TO VIEW ,A DEPRESSING STORY, THIS IS THEIR TICKET. Burt Lancaster encounters a great deal of depression as he lurks on the foggy London scene. He communicates his troubles to Joan Fontaine. The substance of the drama purveyed here is a brutal study of a man gone almost berserk because of his war experience and his inability to adjust himself to current normalcy. It is no pieasant spectacle, is unrelieved as it measures the man to restore his faith in himself and the world via the love of a good woman. Adult fare, in its grimmer moments there are scenes definitely not for the squeamish. A Canadian in London by way of Detroit, Lancaster suffered as a prisoner of the Nazis for two years and he does not like to be pushed around. When a publican tries to eject him, Lancaster knocks the man down, causes his death and runs away with the polica giving chase. He climbs into Miss Fontaine’s room, spends the night and next day muggs a man in an alley. With the loot he buys a new outfit. Then he sets out to court Miss Fontaine after a style. A brawl lands Lancaster in prison. He is lashed, too. After serving time, Miss Fontaine on his discharge gets him a job where she works — in a Clinic. Things are going well. Lancaster keeps himself under contro] until Robert Newton declares himself in on a deal he has made wherein a shipment of drugs is to be hijacked and smuggled aboard a ship. It misses fire. Newton is annoyed and pays Miss Fontaine a visit. He gets fresh, she stabs him with a scissor. Newton later dies, sordidly. Now, with the lovers involved in two killings, the big moment comes along. Lancaster tries to induce the girl to leave the country. She would rather face an investigation. Lancaster decides to follow suit. CAST: ,Joan Fontaine, Burt Lancaster, Robert Newton, Lewis L. Russell, Aminta Dyne, Grizelda Hervey. CREDITS: A _ Harold Hecht-Norma Production; Screenplay, Leonardo Bercovici; Adaptation, Ben Meadow, Walter Bernstein; From the novel by Gerald Butler; Producer, Richard Vernon; Director, Norman Foster; Photography, Russell Metty. DIRECTION: Okay. PHOTOGRAPHY: Good, REVIEWS FROM FILM DAILY, NEW YORK The Paleface with Bob Hope, Jane Russell Paramount (Technicolor) 91 Mins. ANOTHER CLICK HOPE DISPLAY TO BE UNWRAPPED FOR THE HOLIDAY TRADE. HOPE IN TOP FORM, MISS RUSSELL ABLE AND EFFECTIVE. PEAK LAFF SHOW. When the showman unwraps this new Bob Hope package for the holiday trade, he’ll have another click Hopian display for the delight of his customers. An inclination for the pat, routine phrase might label this one aS an unadulterated burlesque of westerns, their assorted plot gimmicks and what all. As a straight woman to the Hope collection of gags and drolleries, Jane Russell, playing at “Calamity Jane,” keeps a gyroscopic hold on the doings and very well, too. In the beginning she’s sprung from the jug and offered a pardon by the governor if she can uncover a plot wherein the well known white men are trading guns and explosives to the red men. In short order and with an assist by her gun butt, she meets up with Bob Hope — “Painless Peter Potter,” an ICS dentist given to frolicking with laughing gas. Anesthetizing Hope with her Colt, Miss Russell, in order to throw her pursuit off the trail, marries him. : As the road leads to Buffalo Flats, Hope plays at being a dead ‘shot when Indians ambush the wagon train, is ardently amorous with Miss Russell who frequently taps his cranium to keep 4 safe distance, forgets to connect the Finnegan pin on his wagon _and consequently when ready to get off to a flying start flies off behind the nags while the wagon stays; tangles with Iris Adrian and later shoots it out with “Joe,” her lover. No western gunfight was ever handled like this latter. But the Indians and the renegades catch up with Jane and Bob. The stake their fate, Bob manages to slip off and return as a medicine man to save Jane and dispose of whatever is left of the plot in a manner of disposal orthodox in the oater genre but something else again when Hope is abcut. CAST: Bob Hope, Jane Russell, Robert Armstrong, Iris Adrian, Robert Watson, Jack Searl, Joseph Vitale, Charles Trowbridge. CREDITS: Producer, Robert L, Welch; Director, Norman Z. McLeod; Original screenplay, Edmund Hartmann, Frank T-shlin; Additional dialocue, Jack Rose; Photography, Ray Rennahan. DIRECTION: _ Slick. PHOTOGRA PHY: Fine. REVIEWS INFORMATION © RATINGS $2.00 Per Annum Unfaithfully Yours with Rex Harrison, Linda Darnell, Rudy Vallee, Barbara Lawrence, 20th-Fox 105 Mins. AN ADROIT FUN FEST FROM PRESTON STURGES, IT IS SLICK FARCE AND WILL PROBABLY DELIGHT EVERY AUDIENCE SEGMENT. This film is an adroit, literate light piece that builds from a familiar base to highblown farce comedy heavily embroidered with low drollery. The central point of the plot is a variant of the jealous, suspecting husband theme. Sturges has created a collection of slick characters in the husband and wife. Former is a British symphony orchestra. conductor whose real life counterpart will not be hard to guess. Wifey, who nevér strayed, is the beauteous Linda Darnell. As “Sir Alfred de Carter,” scion of a family whose product has kept England “on time” since Waterloo, Harrison returns from a concert tour abroad and Rudy immediately. informs him he hired a detective to keep watch on Miss Darnell. Harrison, very much in love with Linda, just about tosses Vallee and his report out. But the report keeps coming back and Harrison learns that one night during his absence Miss Darnell visited Kurt Kreuger’s room in a negligee. At onca connubial bliss is shattered. Harrison develops a rage, goes off to to conduct. As he leads the orchestra, Harrison in his. mind’s eye schemes revenge and as Rossini, Wagner and Tchaikowsky is played he formulates three separate plans of action. In one he murders Miss Darnell with a razor, in another he pays her off, thirdly he confronts the alleged adulterers for a game of Russian roulette but loses out in demonstrating. Following the concert, Rex rushes home and starts to develop the first plan. Reality proves disastrous. At every turn he fumbles and runs into one damned annoyance after another. Of course, the truth comes out at length.. Miss Darnell is quite innocent of any straying from the marital path. CAST: Rex Harrison, Linda Darnell, Barbara Lawrence, Rudy Vallee, Kurt Kreuger, Lionel Stander, Edgar Kennedy. CREDITS: An_ original screenplay written, produced, directed by Preston Sturges; Musical direction, Alfred Newman; Photography, Victor Milner. DIRECTION: Tops. PHOTOGRAPHY: Excellent,