Independent Exhibitors Film Bulletin (1952)

Some Raves, Some Pans for Crosby Starrer 'Just For You' "QUOT6S" What the Newspaper Critics Saq Ahnut New Fill l The concensus on Paramount's "Just For You", Technicolor feature starring Bing Crosby and lane Wyman, while ranging from left to right, left little doubt that the company had another top-flight audience picture. The New York critics lavished praises on the film — with two exceptions, the Times' Rosley Crowther, and the Herald Tribune's Otis L. Guernsey, Jr. The latter obviously was disappointed in the film after an expectancy of matching it with "Here Comes the Groom," the last Crosby-Wyman starrer. Crowther blamed the direction and the script for the picture's failings. Of the others, the limitations placed on Crosby's nonchalant humor with the principal gripe. In the Post, Archer Winsten found a "perfect equilibrium between the customary splendor of the movie musical and the eternal entertainment requirement that a story maintain some reality and emotion." He feels the film "has just about everything in gocd proportions, which means that it should be tolerable to the fastidious while winning popularity with the mob." W hile everything is "large, lavish and luscious," says the World Telegram's Alton Cook, and the film is "likely to have the same quick success as its musical herald, 'Zing a Little Zong' ", he decries the dearth of Crosby's casual comedy. "The trouble is," he adds, "when Bing comes along we expect to see him in something special." "A honey of a picture" is the opinion of the Journal American's Rose Pelswick. It's "spun out with charm and humor as well as melody," with the star "at his best". Charging direction and script for the film's failure "to come off entirely," the Times' Crowther, uses such phrases as "rigid and uninspiring" for the staging and pacing, "stiff and conventional" for the script. He credits some musical numbers, but for the most part, he adds, "the ideas are worked out in pretty tedious talk." Even more condemnatory, perhaps, was the Herald Tribune's Guernsey, who blamed the "mediocre musical comedy script." Neither story, nor tunes, nor Crosby's presence, he feels, "lift 'Just For You' up to the mark of lively amusement." He describes it as having the "air of a summer musical which has wandered upon the movie scene too late for its own good and with too little equipment to sustain it in the autumn season." HURRICANE SMITH' PARAMOUNT "Pretentious affair . . . Ambitious but inconsequential action . . . keyed to the very juvenile trade."— Thirer, N. Y. Post. "Moderate program show in which a great deal of muscular action occurs exactly as you expect it."— Crowther, N. Y. Times. "A field day for leering oglers watching Yvonne DeCarlo stroll around in low-cut gowns . . . Jumbled story . . . The Palace vaudeville comes as a welcome contrast." — Cook, N. Y. World-Telegram & Sun. Page 24 FILM BULLETIN November 3, 1952 "Only occasionally is the usual routine interrupted by some startling action . . . Mutiny shown herein is one of the tamest coups ever put on film . . . Fair program filler." — Pihodna, N. Y. Herald Tribune. 'LURE OF THE WILDERNESS' 20th CENTURY-FOX "Conventional story of love and murder under picturesque conditions . . . What there is to be seen of the swamp steals the show from an otherwise pedestrian movie." — Guernsey, N. Y. Herald Tribune. "With all the chill menace of the swamplands that Fox has got into this film, it hasn't got into it a story or acting that carries any conviction at all." — Crowther, N. Y. Times. "Plenty of wilderness . . . but no discernable lure ... As an outdoor adventure film, (it) fulfills the primary requirements . . . Violent action . . . Arouses the audience to participation." — Winsten, N. Y. Post. "Naive excursion into a story that has fascinated many a moviegoer in a multitude of variations . . . Romantic trifle emerges . . . Neither wilderness nor picture lives up to the lure of the title." — Cook, N. Y. World-Telegram & Sun. "Colorful shots of the swamp and its wild life provide an unusual background . . . Script works up a good measure of suspense."— Pelswick, N. Y. Journal American. NIGHT WITHOUT SLEEP' 20th CENTURY-FOX "Psychological twister that somehow fails to stoke up the interest necessary to sustain the spectator throughout its long search for the answer ... So ponderously devious that it has outsmarted itself." — Winsten, N. Y. Post. "Without spark, without inspiration, without intelligence and without suspense, this bleak exercise in morbid mooning moves slowly and barely, if at all." — Crowther, N. Y. Times. "The drunken fog hanging over the picture is so dense that sober members of the audience may share the dazed bewilderment of their alcoholic friend." — Cook, N. Y. World-Telegram & Sun. "Slick cast and an unusual story . . . provides a good bit of tension." — Pelswick, N. Y. Journal American. "Fair-to-middling thriller of the timebomb suspense variety . . . Has the right, unpretentious touch through most of its nervy footage and it holds up fairly well." — Guernsey, N. Y. Herald Tribune. YOU FOR ME' METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER "Delightful bit of tomfoolery . . . Plot could have seemed silly if it had not been backed up by such clever acting and almost continuously sharp dialogue." — P. V. B., N. Y. Herald Tribune. "Neither romantic nor humorous . . . Empty and listless tale." — A. O. G., N. I Times. "Hollywood films frequently haggle til topic, always with the same result. Tf argument this time has even less point th I. usual . . . fGig Young's) stolid mood seemil to be matched by the response of the op(jl ing-day audience." — Cook, N. Y. Worj Telegram & Sun. "There is a strong feeling in this depa ment that (Peter) Lawford is capable < much better things. Still, he does adej these little bits of thistledown better th anvone else could." — Winsten, N .Y. Pel BEWARE, MY LOVELY' RKO RADIO "A picture of mounting tension but ccj sidering the number of stories, books a] movies dealing with this psychiatric then] it blazes no new trails." — Beckley, N. | Herald Tribune. "Not enough latitude or variety to kel the suspense from becoming repetitive . I Offbeat enterprise, not only in theme H in a climax which will prove unsatisfactc|i for many a moviegoer." — Masters, N. I News. "Clearly contrived and designed for J other positive purpose than to send shiv<| chasing up and down the spine ... I success will depend entirely upon how si] ceptible you are to illogic and little tricks i looming shadows and clutching hands.Y Crowther, N. Y. Times. SON OF PALEFACE PARAMOUNT "Wild farce that comes so close to fl style of those old 'Road to ■ " pictii' of Mr. Hope, Bing Crosby and Dorot, Lamour . . . Mr. Hope's comment on \j Let's see 'em beat this on television!' — taj the whole show." — Crowther, N. Y. Tim, "Barrel of fun ... as joyfully unpredil able as a stroll through an amusement p;j: fun house . . . Every bit as good as 'If Paleface' was, and it should laugh 1 customers dizzy." — Guernsey, N. Y. HerJ Tribune. "Another hilarious hit . . . Efforts of 9 Hope and his cohorts this time are 1 strenuous that the perspiration occasiona'l drips soggily on the funny business. M< often, however, the picture is sweeping audience up in gales of mirth. The hunf I is impudent, nonsensical and infectious. 'rJl Cook, N. Y. World-Telegram & Sun. "If you howle dat . . . 'The Paleface', flj till you see its Technicolored follow-up .1 Hope is tops, and the piece fashioned arou him is nothing short of hilarious . . . N< once lets down." — Pelswick, N. Y. Jour American. "Collection of ingenious insanities . . . stage revue with comic sketches as good most of the bits and pieces of 'Son of Ps face' would be a wow." — Pollock, N. Compass.