Exhibitors Herald and Moving Picture World (Apr-Jun 1930)

90 EXHIBITORS HERALD-WORLD June 7, 19”) w SERVICE ON PICTURES This department does not attempt to predict the public's reactions to pictures. It does, instead, present detailed and accurate information on product, together with the frank and honest opinion of the reporter :■ THE FLORODORA GIRL TELL ME PRETTY MAIDEN. Produced and distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Directed by Harry Beaumont. Dialog by Gene Markey, Ralph Spence, Al Boasberg and Robert Hopkins. Edited by Carl L. Pierson. Released May 24. Sound footage 7,260 feet. With Marion Davies, Lawrence Gray, Walter Catlett, Louis J. Bartels, Ilka Chase, Vivian Oakley, and others. _L HE FLORODORA GIRL” is a charming, and amusing depiction of the Naughty ‘90s, quaintly burlesqued and not to be taken seriously. The old fashioned tintypes are full of laughs to any and all that do or don’t remember ’way-back-when a hat-pin was a girl’s best friend. And Marion Davies, as the last of the famous Florodora Sextette to get her millionaire, gives just the right tone to her performance which ranges from a lot of clowning to plain old fashioned drama. She’s the girl on the end in that famous sextette number. Daisy is her name, and she has nothing to tell. For she’s the only one in the show who doesn’t get jewels and things from those gay stage-door Johnnies. For Daisy is a good girl, who doesn’t go to parties, but goes straight home after the show. That is, almost straight home. First she stops at the corner saloon to peek under the swinging doors. If her old man is there, and he always is, she drags him away from the free lunch counter, and takes him and a can of foaming beer home with her. Then one day a scion of New York’s aristocracy comes into her life. He plights his troth and Daisy believes he is sincere. But you and I know that he doesn't mean to do right by her. The cad takes her to an inn and tries to kiss her. She slaps him, makes him take back his jewels and gets away. But he really loves her and wins her forgiveness. But there’s a villain in the plot. When our hero bets his entire fortune on his own race horse, the villain who has his own designs on Daisy, bribes the jockey to lose the race. Daisy breaks her engagement in order that her beau may marry a girl of wealth and station who is pursuing him. But instead of doing that, he goes into the horseless-carriage business. The villain still pursues our Daisy, until she is rescued by our hero who brings his mother to welcome her into the family. You’ll be tempted to dig out the old family album when you see the bathing beauties in a daring ankle display, when you hear the mustachioed bartender singing “My Mother Was a Lady,” and when the Florodora Sextette go into their “Tell Me Pretty Maiden” number. The story is all very slight, but who cares about that? There’s the old fashioned picnic with its barrels of beer, the quartette singing “Little Annie Rooney,” the bicycles built for two, and the bustled and petticoated ladies dancing to the tune of “After the Ball.” — Harry Tugend, New York. Marion Davies jor her performance in M G M*s “ The Florodora Girl.** Her work ranges from clowning to old fashioned drama. MYSTERY AT THE VILLA ROSE INTRODUCING A FRENCH PHILO VANCE! Produced by Julius Hagen and Henry Edwards. Distributed by Harold Auten. Directed by Leslie Hiscott. Photographed by Sidney Blythe. Cast: Austin Trevor, Richard Cooper. Francis Lister, John Hamilton. Amy BrandonThomas, Violet Farebrother, Nora Baring, Barbara Gott. Release May 30. J^^_N interesting picture is “Mystery at the Villa Rose,” a British talker produced by Julius Hagen and Henry Edwards. Taken from the novel and stage play by A. E. Mason, and played by a thoroughly competent cast, it makes a good, absorbing piece of entertainment which tends to grow on you after you have left the theatre and begin to piece all the clues together in your mind to discover how Hanaud, the celebrated detective, first suspected Weathermill of the murder of Mme. D’Auvray. Curiously enough, this picture is good in spite of exceptionally bad recording, and dialog that is not brilliant. A wealthy woman is strangled but the murderer fails to find her jewels. Suspicion points to her protege, a young girl who gives fake seances. A famous detective steps in, unravels the mystery, always keeping up suspenses and solving the thing only in the last hundi feet. Austin Trevor is very good as the detf live, Richard Cooper is grand in his role a Nora Baring, while not pretty at all, is v< appealing as the young woman accused of t murder. As a matter of fact it is her lo\ who committed the crime. But you’d ne\ guess it — not till the moment when Trev catches him with a phrase. The clews, ho ever, dovetail so nicely that I believe t author must have written the plot backwards.' Dougles Fox, New York. * * * SAFETY IN NUMBERS $25,000,000 CAN GO WRONG. Produced and distributed by Paramount. Directed by Victor Schertzinger. Written by George Marion, Jr., and Percy Heath. Scenario by Marion Dix. Released June 21. Sound footage 7,074 feet. With Buddy Rogers, Kathryn Crawford, Josephine Dunn, Carol Lombard, Geneva 1 Mitchell, Roscoe Karns, Francis McDonald and others. 1 l~*^IJDDY ROGERS as the boy who is sent i the big city to learn its pitfalls before inher ing $25,000,000, is cast perfectly in this not-! heavy bit of entertainment. He does his jut nile stuff in the buoyantly likable manner th has placed his photograph on the dresser i many a school girl. Not that this is strictly school, girl entertai ment. For that Crawford-Dunn-Lombard tr of girls who know the ropes contribute enou, wise-cracks and comedy to bring a laugh o of anybody. They are the three Follies girls selected 1 Billy Reynolds’ uncle, to chaperone the bu ding young millionaire and keep him out mischief. But what happens when a ni young man is so closely associated with thr nice young women? Why he immediate plans to organize, not a quartette, but a dm And Jacqueline, the prettiest of the three, loo like the choice as the much-better-half. At one of the Follies’ rehearsals, Billy given a chance to try out his own “Pick U] number. It goes over big. Jacqueline real loves him, but thinks she will violate the tru of his uncle if she marries him. So she accep an offer to perform in the Parisian Folli Bergere. Billy is inveigled into going out with Aim a notorious gold-digger. The three chaperon rescue him from her clutches. Jacquelii packs her things and leaves for the boat. B when uncle arrives and is told that she ar Billy are that way about each other, he giv> his consent. They all rush down to the pi in time to rescue Jacqueline from the Perils ' Paris. The three girls are really the whole sho as far as I’m concerned. There are son catchy tunes that will soon be given the ai via radio. It’s a pleasantly amusing program pictur and that’s just what it is intended to be.Harry Tugend. New York.