We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
THE WANDERING JEW (British. Twickenham Film Studios) . This film has a magnificent opportunity to pattern the landscape of history. But theatrical conventions still tie the hands of Britisli producers. "Costumes by Clarkson' in the credit titles typifies the director's attitude. In not one particular does the play emerge into movement. True to the tradition of costume pictures, sex is the motivation of every incident. The Jew wanders through history on a series of amorous exploits.
We once claimed that movie knocked a hole in the theatre wall. This picture demonstrates how we are replacing the walls of the theatre with the limits of the screen. Nothing ever happens outside the frame; we are ever conscious of the scenes brought to life by the producer's command to shoot.
This pageant of sex is graced by four of our leading stage actresses who belong to the British school "never forget you are a lady." But Conrad Veidt is the film, and the film is Conrad Veidt, and your enjoyment will depend on whether you can stand ten reels of Veidt undiluted, with no directional bridling. He runs the gamut of emotions without restraint. The chief virtues of this film have their source in Sidney Blythe, the cameraman, whose lighting and photography are consistently brilliant.
D. F. Taylor.
FOOTLIGHT PARADE (American. Warner Brothers). This is a triumph of showmanship. It belongs to a familiar type of screen revue, but the exploitation of spectacle has seldom produced a film in which the pictorial values are so outstanding. Its appeal is primarily to the eye. The musical trimmings are inferior to those of Forty-Second Street, hitherto regarded as the acme of the Warner achievement in revue. One sequence — for which Lloyd Bacon, the director, and George Barnes, the cameraman, take most of the credit — is probably the loveliest creation yet seen in films of this type. It owes much to the Goldwyn discovery, in The Kid From Spain. that choreographic patterns can be charmingly described in a Nwimming-pool by amphibious bathing beauties. It is, however, a finer achievement, and the evolutions of the tinselled bodies now spreading outward like flower petals, now assembling in coils like a vast snake — testify to real feeling for the beauty of mass movement. The camera angles are well chosen. It was a happy thought to shoot part of the aquatic ballet from below the water. The result is magical. The film will have interest for admirers of James ( agney. He surprisingly reveals gifts as a singer and tap-dancer.
Campbell Nairne.
J25