The Exhibitor (Nov 1939-May 1940)

Serviseetion 3 THE EXHIBITOR UNIVERSAL WARNERS-EN Half a Sinner (4040) Family Mystery Drama 59m. It All Came True Family Comedy Drama 87m. Heather Angel, John King, Constance Collier, Walter Catlett, Tom Dugan, Robert Elliot, Clem Bevans, Emma Dunn, Henry Brandon, William B. Davidson, Fern Emmett, Sonny Bupp, Wilbur Mack, Joe Devlin. Directed by Al Christie. A lightweight for the bottom of the duallers, this tells the story of a spinsterish school teacher who kicks over the traces for a day, gets spruced up, and becomes involved in a murder, stolen car, and plenty of chases by the police, as well as picking up a man who poses as a crook. The escapades are straightened out when the man turns out to be a socialite, the bad gang cleaned up and the schoolmarm getting her man. The cast is pleasant enough, but the whole thing is strictly for the nabes. Heather Angel, as the school teacher; John King, as the socialite, and Constance Collier, as a dowager, stand out, but the script doesn’t give them much chance. Estimate: Lightweight bottom dualler. It’s a Date (4001) Family Comedy with Music 103m. Deanna Durbin, Kay Francis, Walter Pidgeon, Eugene Pallette, Cecilia Loftus, L ewis Howard, Henry Stephenson, Samuel S. Hinds, Fritz Feld, S. Z. Sakall, Virginia Brissac, Romaine Callender, Joe King, Mary Kelly, Eddie Polo, Harry Evans and his Royal Hawaiians. Directed by William Seiter. Number seven in the Deanna Durbin series from Universal will not only prove lucky for the company but the exhibitors who play it. In this, Miss Durbin, grown up and attractive, is the daughter of actress Kay Francis, following in her footsteps. When the mother goes to Hawaii to rest, the daughter, through her performance in a dramatic school, is promised the part the mother has already set her heart on playing. From then on, it becomes a series of misunderstandings and comedy situations, beginning on a boat to Hawaii where Miss Durbin, on her way to tell her mother the good news, meets pineapple tycoon Walter Pidgeon. She thinks he is falling in love with her. Arriving at Hawaii, she learns that her mother thinks she is to play the role so does not tell her she has been promised it. Determining to eliminate herself from the competition, Miss Durbin rushes Pidgeon, tells her mother they are to be married. But Pidgeon falls for the mother, who misunderstands and doesn’t appreciate the situation until Pidgeon actually proposes, a few moments before Miss Durbin thinks he will propose to her. On the scene come the producer and author of the play at the time when the mother decides to quit the stage for marriage, and suggests the daughter for the part, thus winding up all the threads and allowing the happy ending. Made in the swelegant Universal manner, this has all the angles, and is as pleasant a bit of film as seen in many moons. Miss Durbin sings “Loch Lomond,” “It Happened in Kaloha,” “Musella’s Street Song” from “La Boheme,” “Ave Maria,” “Love Is All,’ “Rhythm of the Islands.” Estimate: Number seven rings the bell. Ann Sheridan, Humphrey Bogart, Jeffrey Lynn, ZaSu Pitts, Grant Mitchell, Una O'Connor, Jessie Busley, Charles Judels, Felix Bressart, George Meader, John Litel, Max Hoffman, Jr., Jack Mower, John Ridgeley, DeWolf Hopper. Directed by Lewis Seiler. Executive producer, Hal B. Wallis. Louis Bromfield’s story is the basis for a programmer, loosely woven in the first half, but which winds up enough speed toward the end to send audiences out with a happy “everything all right in the end” spirit. It also allows “oomph girl” Ann Sheridan to act (and she acquits herself creditably) . Setting is an old boarding house in a big city, ruled by two elderly ladies, one of whom, the mother of night club pianist Jeffrey Lynn, keeps inventing “happy ending stories” when problems arise, while the other, Una O’Connor, the mother of ex-chorine Ann Sheridan, who by her own admission is still a “good girl,” rules the kitchen. Lynn brings Humphrey Bogart, a gangster-night club chief, to the house to hide after the latter has bumped off a squealer. Lynn knows Bogart has murdered with Lynn’s gun. Bogart keeps to his room, is known to the boarding house roomers only as a sick gentleman, while Lynn composes and renews his romance with Sheridan. However, the latter finds out who Bogart is. He knows her, too. The yarn then picks up pace with Bogart, sick and tired of the motherly attitude of the two old women, finally coming out of hiding, mixing with the guests, enjoying a parlor performance by the roomers, and resolving to turn the boarding house into a “Roaring ’90’s” club. Lynn and Sheridan get their chance on the opening night, but through boarder ZaSu Pitts’ discovery of Bogart’s identity the police are informed and close in. The latter, instead of framing Lynn, takes the rap himself, thus proving the “it all came true” angle. Miss Sheridan sings “Gaucho Serenade” and “Angel in Disguise”; an old-time vaudeville show is very amusing; Felix Bressart contributes a hammagician bit, while the others are capable, also. All in all, this is a different type of show. Estimate: Fair program. Family Tear Gas Sqxiad action Drama 58m. Dennis Morgan, John Payne, Gloria Dickson, George Reeves, Frank Wilcox, Julie Stevens, Harry Shannon, Mary Gordon, Adrian Morris, Ben Welden, Herbert Anderson. Directed by Terry Morse. Lacking in marquee names but nevertheless possessing some entertaining moments, this one will fit okay as companion feature. Cafe singer Dennis Morgan steals a kiss from Gloria Dickson at their first meeting. She invites him to her home for the express purpose of ridicule but his singing of Irish songs wins the approval of her police lieutenant father and the entire family. Jealousy enters the picture via the girl’s policeman suitor, John Payne, so Morgan joins the police training school under instructions of his rival, takes plenty of punishment but qualifies for the force and also makes the glee club. Morgan’s brother, a druggist, captures a number one gangster whose gal friend goes back to the scene of action and kills the druggist. Morgan is suspended for a brawl with Payne but manages to get into action with the manhunters, capturing the killer, saving Payne’s life, and winning the girl. Outstanding is the singing of Morgan, who more than satisfied the preview audience with an oldie, “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling.” Audience reaction good. Estimate: Okay action supporting fare. MISCELLANEOUS American Gang _ Family _ Documentary Busters 64m. (Times) No other production credits available. Tacking together newsreel shots, stills, and enacted sequences, Captain A. F. Dion has readied this celluloid which can be sold by houses going in for sensational entertainment and even more sensational bally. Shown are tabloid biographies of the lives and deaths of such public enemies as Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker, John Dillinger; “Machine Gun” Kelly; The Urschel Kidnappers; Ray Hamilton; “Pretty Boy” Floyd; Bruno Richard Hauptman; and Alvin Karpis. The film is of the “Crime Does Not Pay” variety with actual shots of some of the gangs and the men who busted them. The photography is dark and jerky for the most part, but it can be sold on the basis of its “cast.” Estimate: For sensational salesmanship only. FOROUN The Blessed (Roma) Mother Cabrini Family Documentary 71m. Produced in Italy, released in Italian, English, and other versions. English commentary read by the Reverend. Father Cletus McCarthy, O.F.M. Cap. No other production credits available. Appealing to Roman Catholics, and particularly to those of Italian origin, “Mother Cabrini” is the story of Frances Xavier Cabrini (1850 — 1917), founder of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart, who was commissioned by His Holiness, Leo XIII, to pursue her work in the United States. With the Reverend Father Cletus McCarthy doing the intermittant narration, the story starts with Mother Cabrini’s arrival in the United States early in 1889, progresses, by way of narration and re-enactment (with and without directly recorded dialogue), through the establishment of an orpanage at Arlington, New Jersey, the Columbus 'Hospital (1891) in the City of New York, a similarly named hospital in Chicago, and a few others of the 67 institutions credited to her, to her death in Chicago (1917), the two miracles effected, her beatification, with the late George Cardinal Mundelein presiding, at the Basilica of Saint Peter’s in Rome in 1938, and the novenas now being conducted in the chapel of the Mother Cabrini High School, New York, where her body lies in a glass-fronted sepulcher before the altar. Other than its religious appeal, “Mother Cabrini” has poor photography, less good direction, and below standard recording. However, the use of Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata,” the traditional “Adeste Fidelis,” and Schubert’s “Ave Maria” to counterpoint the screen action was almost inspired. Estimate: For Catholics in general, the Italian ones in particular. 501