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a grim paralysis of body and soul such as only the German movie can express with full grandeur.
The fat jolly joiner, who is suddenly seized with a paroxysm oi fear that his carefully-built-up life will be shattered, is played by that stage-actor Eugene Klopfer, whom you will recall in The Street, Mew Year's Eve, Martin Luther and The Earl of Essex. He has the true Germanic laboured style of heavy movements, which will remind you of Jannings. And it is his acting, drawn out by Feher's handling, that largely makes this picture interesting. His acting spreads beyond him, envelops the environment, bends the material to his will, just as Veidt in The Student of Prague or Wegener in The Golem. But it has this difference, that unlike the early German films it is played largely against an authentic background. The streets and alleys of Marseilles play as great a part in the building of the fear mood as the bogey man of Boubou's imagination. That is where Feher has been clever.
Although no credit is given for the music, it is obviously specially written for the film. Its phrasing is admirably in sympathy with the changes of mood. It swells to a climax, cuts sharp to silence, buildslowly again and so on. It is essentially an accompaniment emphasising the action, and I found it singularly successful.
Paul Roth a.
MAYOR OF HELL
Production: Warner Brothers. Scenario: Chodorov. Direction: Archie Mayo. Photography: Barry McGill. Editing: Jack Kellifer. With James Cagney, Dudley Digges, Madge Evans, Frankie Da no.
What if this picture is inspired by The Road to Life? The inspiration is good and the idea behind the film admirable. It marks one of the biggest steps forward in the American movie's attempt to find themes in current social material. Do not confuse it casually with De Mille's This Day and Age. It is more important.
A gang of kid hooligans is broken up by the police and the ringleaders sent to a reform school, which is being run on a graft basis by a particularly villainous superintendent. A new deputv commissioner (Cagney) is appointed as a result of his assistance in a racket political election. The new commissioner has three virtues: an eye for women, a liking for "guts" and a sense of fairplay. The woman is the nurse at the school. He contrives to take over running of the school, establishes a self-governing republic among the boys and all is well — perhaps with a little too much haste to be wholly convincing. But the racket behind him forces a shoot i \ and he has to go under cover. The late superintendent again take^ over, reinstates his old methods, leading eventually to a boy's dea
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