The Exhibitor (Jun-Nov 1942)

C73 £ xn i rr3: r SERVISECTION CTUAL REVIEWS with ALL pertinent data, ptus the X-RAY MONOGRAM One Thrilling Night Rubber Racketeers Melodrama 66m. Comedy 69m. Estimate: Fast moving inde entrant. Cast: John Beal, Wanda McKay, Warren Hymer, J. Farrell MacDonald, Barbara Pepper, Tom Neal, Ernie Adams, Lynton Brent, Pierce Lyden, Gene O’Donnell, Jim O’Gatty, Tom Herbert, Charles Williams. Directed by William Beaudine. Story: Newlyweds John Beal and Wanda McKay arrive in New York for their onenight honeymoon. As Beal must report to the Army next morning, he leaves word with the hotel clerk to wake him early. By chance, they are assigned to a room previously used by a gapgster. Pierce Lyden, to hide $50,000. The newlyweds prepare to retire. McKay goes to the bathroom to pretty-up, Beal goes out to buy a bottle of champagne to celebrate, . ■ and, while this is happening two gangsters slug Lyden, and bring him into the hotel room via the window to force him to tell where the loot is hidden. Hearing Beal, they put the body in the bed, and hide underneath. From there on it is a series of tangles, false arrests, mistaken identities, suspense, and frustration of the newlyweds. Finally, when house-dick Warren tiV; Hymer has everything under control Beal has to join the Army. X-Ray: This is one of the better Mono' gram entrants, shaping up as one of the funnier comedies. Both the leads play their roles to perfection, and there is plenty ^f human interest for any audience. It will . fit neatly into the duallers. Ad Lines: “Gangsters Gang-Up On the Newlyweds . . . And Their Honeymoon Is Spoiled”; ‘.‘The War Interfered With Their Honeymoon”; “Why Did Everything Happen Ae Night They Were Married? . . . See ‘One Thrilling Night’ . . . and Learn.” Carry Your Office Under Your Arm! The Exhibitor’s Service Kit! Everybody’s Talking About It! Estimate: Timely topical with plenty of punch. Cast: Ricardo Cortez, Rochelle Hudson, Bill Henry, Barbara Read, Milburn Stone, Dewey Rohinson, John Abbott, Pat Gleason, Dick Rich, Alan Hale, Jr., Sam Edwards, Kam Tong, Dick Hogan, Marjorie Manners, Alex Callam. Directed by Harold Young. Story: When racketeer Ricardo Cortez, just released from prison, hears about the shortage of rubber and tires, he decides to go into the tire stealing and reselling racket, and, with his old gang, steals new tires, gives them the once over to make them look a bit worn, takes old carcases, retreads with a cheap synthetic rubber, and sells them by buying in old jaloppies, and placing the supposedly good tires on the rims. One day, a lad buys one of the retreads, and is killed by a blowout. Bill Henry, who loves the lad’s sister, Barbara Read, determines to bring the culprit to justice. Gathering a bunch of defense workers at the plant in which he works, they visit all the second-hand car lots, but Cortez has smelled a rat, cleans out the lots, and prepares to skip. Meantime, Cortez’s girl friend, Rochelle Hudson, who has met Henry and Read and likes them, tries to disuade Cortez from his business. Cortez is tracked down by Henry; the defense workers break into a warehouse, where the “hot tires’’ are remade, and, in a fight, Cortez is killed but not until after his Chinese servant, Kam Tong, now in the Army, in an impassioned speech, tries to appeal to hirn to give up his unpatriotic racket, and is shot by Cortez. X-Ray: Fast moving, the first show devoted to the “hot rubber” racket, this will suffice in the action houses or on the duals. The King brothers made it, and the plot is well knit, the suspense good, and the dialogue okay. Selling it for what it is, an expose of “hot rubber,” it should get more than passing attention. In addition, the feature names should mean something. Ad Lines: “At Last . . . The Hot Rubber Racket Exposed”; “Clean-minded Defense Workers Wipe Out a Gang of Dirty Crooks”; “A Young Defense Worker Pits His Brains Against a Bunch of Racketeers and Brings Them to Justice.” PARAMOUNT The Beachcomber ^“ult Melodrama (Re-issue) sqm. (English-made) Estimate: Re-issue is above average British production. Cast: Charles Laughton, Elsa Lanchester, Tyrone Guthrie, Robert Newton, Dolly Mollinger, Rosita Garcia, J. Solomon, Fred Groves, Eliot Makeham, Mah Foo, Ley On, D. J. Ward, S. Allen, Dudley (dog). Produced and directed by Erich Pommer. Story: This concerns the trials and tribulations of the only four white people living among the natives of Dutch East Indies. Robert Newman is the Dutch government representative, so lonesome that he craves the company of Charles Laughton, a disreputable beachcomber, who lives on money from home which he spends on monthly sprees. Resenting Newman’s friendship for Laughton, and his drunken habits are Tyrone Guthrie, an ascetic minister-medico, and his spinster .'■chool marm sister, Elsa Lanchester. The spinster’s efforts to reform Laughton, or to have him severely punished, result in their being thrown together on an island overnight. The spinster is of constant fear that Laughton will take advantage of her in this situation. When he makes no attempt to molest her, she believes there is some good in the man. In the end they are both married, returning to England where she becomes the gracious hostess of a rural pub, he the temperate landlord. X-Ray: This is one of the better films to come from England. It is highly sophisticated, and exceedingly funny in spots. Picture was originally released by Paramount in 1938, and was reviewed in The Exhibitor Servisection of Dec. 14, 1938, on page 226. 1047 SECTION TWO VOL. 28. No. 10 JULY 1 5 19 4 2