Independent Exhibitors Film Bulletin (1952)

'SINClN' IN THE RAIN' TOPFLIGHT METRO MUSICAL WILL BE SOCK HIT Rates • • • + generally M-G-M 103 minutes Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor, Debbie Reynolds, Jean Hagen, Millard Mitchell, Cyd Charisse, Rita Moreno, Douglas Fowley, Madge Blake. Directed by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen. Based on the same Technicolor musical Formula that producer Arthur Freed has found so successful in the past, "Singin" in the Rain" combines elements of delightful music, lavish sets and costumes, top-drawer song and dance routines and laugh-provoking comedy to fabricate a bright entertainment gem. This definitely . ranks with the best musicals to come off the M-G-M lot, or any other, and it will create a noisy jingle at boxoffices in all situations The problems faced by a film studio during the conversion from silent movies to talkies, forms the background for rollicking musical numbers — staged by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen, and fired by the tunes of Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed. The story is flavored with humorous satire on Hollywood life in the twenties, which is sure to delight audiences who remember the "silent" days. Kelly maintains his fast-steeping pace, reaching a breathtaking climax in the "Broadway Ballet" sequence. Debbie Reynolds turns in a neat performance opposite Kelly, and Donald O'Connor and Jean Hagen more than hold up their end in the comic department. O'Connor literally knocks himself out in the "Make 'em Laugh" bit, and his terp efforts are outstanding, too. STORY: Gene Kelly and Jean Hagen arc the top stars of Monumental Pictures during the silent era.' When talkies come along, they are faced with the problem of converting their latest silent film into sound, and the result is devastating. Miss llauen's diction is strictly from Brooklyn, and sound makes the silent epic little short of farcial. They solve the problem by turning it into a musical and dubbing in Debbie Reynolds' voice for Hagen's nasal twang, but another impasse is reached when Hagen demands that Reynolds' part in the picture be covered jp. Since Kelly has developed a romantic interest in Debbie, he finds a solution to Hagen's temperamental outburst and all ends well. NEWT THE SNIPER' TENSE PSYCHO YARN WITH STANLEY KRAMER HALLMARK Rates • • • in metropolitan areas; less in small towns s Columbia I 87 minutes I Adolphe Menjou, Arthur Franz, Gerald Mohr, Marie Windsor, Frank Faylen, Richard Kiley, Mabel Paige, Mario Dwyer, I Geraldine Carr, Jay Novello, Ralph Peters, Max Palmer, Sidney Miller, Hurb Latimer, Dani Sue Nolan, Harry Cheshire, Cliff Clark. I Directed by Edward Dmytryk. Here's a big league suspense thriller. A laundry messenger, young, handsome, but insane, terrorizes a city. He has a carbine with a telescopic lens and an irresistible penchant for shooting beautiful girls. Two killings send the city into a frenzy and set the police on his trail. Before the net closes in on him, the deranged, frightened killer has claimed two more victims. That's the guts of the story by Edna and Edward Anhalt. Between them, producer Stanley Kramer and director Edward Dmytryk have wrapped it up in gold leaf. There's no overwhelming production values here, no topflight marque names — just crisp, exciting entertainment. Yes, it's on the grim side, sinister, chilling, gripping; but a splcndi'l change of pace from the comedies and musicals. It's action and suspense all the way. "The Sniper" offers further evidence thit Mr. Stanley Kramer has the master touclv and that Columbia pulled a scoop in acquiring him. This film will get good grosses in the metropolitan houses, especially the deluxe first-runs, transients and acti >n houses. It probably will encounter resistance in the small town family situations. Arthur Franz is outstanding as the helpless, mentally sick killer. He makes the role an intensely sympathetic one. Minus mustache, Adolphe Menjou makes the police lieutenant a real, understandable character. Marie Windsor and Mario Dwyer add the necessary feminine angles. Mabel Paige's landlady is a high point of the playing. S.TORY: Realizing he is mentally deranged, Arthur Franz tries to get help to keep him from exercising his urge to kill women. He deliberately burns his hand BO that he will be treated in a hospital and he hopes, be forcibly restrained from his insane desire to kill. But the hospital is too busy and he is sent back home. His first victim is a curvaceous nite club singer. He shoots her from a rooftop. Next, he destroys a woman who offends him in a bar. With the city in an uproar and the politicians hounding the police, lieutenant Adolphe Menjou and sergeant Gerald Mohr find a clue, Franz's bandage. Meanwhile, he kills two more women. Inevitably, the inexorable police hunt tracks him down and the terrified killer almost gratefully submits. COULTER. MA AND PA AT THE FAIR' A TYPICAL KETTLE POT-BOILER Rates • • • for small towns, rurals; supporting dualler in metropoitan areas Universal 78 minutes Marjorie Main, Percy Kilbride, James Best, Lori Nelson, Esther Dale, Emory Parnell, Oliver Blake, Zachary Charles, Russeil Simpson, Rex Lease. Directed by Charles Barton. It's a cinch that Universal's evergreen Ma and Pa Kettle series will never win any Academy Awards. But this reviewer is not inclined to sniff aloofly at them. Perhaps (who can tell?) twenty years from now they may get a showing at the Museum of Modern Art as jolly satires on typical American rural life. Right now, however, the latest in this seemingly endless series, "Ma and Pa at the Fair", looks like just another example of the corny, slapstick comedy we have come to expect of the Kettles. It has to do with bread and :am-making contests at the county fair, a broken down trot ting horse and a mess of coincidences. For them that likes 'em, this entry is as good as the others. It should be a whiz-bang boxoffice success in the small town and rural areas. In the big cities, the lower half of duals, perhaps. Not for action houses. Percy (Pa) Kilbride gets the better break from scriptists Richard Morris and Jo n Grant, but Marjorie (Ma) Main works ;••< diligently as ever in her dour way. Lori Nelson and James Best are an agreeabh romantic couple. Leonard Goldstein's production gets the most out of obviously economital trappings. Charles Barton's direction moves things along briskly, thank goodness. STORY: The Kettles want to send daughter Lori to college, but they're broke. They see a chance of Ma winning the jam and bread contests at the county fair. Pa, however, sells a half interest in Ma's potential winnings in return for an old trotting nag. Ma wins the jam contest, but 'he judges disqualify her because she had nadvertently entered the trotting race. The bread contest winnings go for the horse. Pa drives the sulky in the race and is almost the winner when Ma, realizing that everyone in the town has bet on the favorite, makes a slingshot of her garter and forces Pa's horse to break stride. Both Ma and Pa are tossed in jail on the charge of having poisoned the other horses. With an angry mob threatening them, the truth of Ma's sacrifice is revealed and they are acclaimed heroes. Esther Dale. Ma's rival, gives them the winning purse to send their daughter to school. COULTER. MARCH 2 4, 1952 15