The Film Daily (1940)

tThursday, June 13, 1940 ^ DAILY i^ -if REVIEUIS OF THE REUI flLfllS ^ ^ "The Ghost Breakers" with Bob Hope, Paulette Goddard, Richard Carlson 'Paramount 82 Mins. (HOLLYWOOD PREVIEW) t CORKING COMEDY HAS LAUGHS AND THRILLS APLENTY; SHOULD DO BIG GENERALLY. ^n Mowing the formula of the previous ^ope-Goddard starrer, "The Cat And The "anary," "The Ghost Breakers," if any■hing, tops the former production. Using ill the thrills they could pack into a taunted castle in Cuba, and ail the laugh lituations and gag lines they could pile on Hope, Director George Marshall, and icreen-playwright Walter De Leon have Viade this picture 82 minutes full of solid ntertainment. Hope, as Lawerence Lawrence Lawerence, a radio tattler, seems to mprove noticeably with each screen effort. He is funnier than ever in this one. ' Paramount has found his niche, and if they 'ceep him doing this sort of thing, Hope should prove a real money-maker. Miss 3oddard is attractive and more than com'jetent as the owner of the haunted castle. Willie Best, colored, playing Hope's "old •amily detainer," can take a bow for doing 'i good job in a very fat part. Richard farlson, Paul Lukas, Anthony Quinn, and ifhe entire supporting cast are as menacing }r as charming as the script demands. I The film should prove no stumbling block ijn the career of Producer Arthur Hornblow, r. Hope, as New York's "Winchell of trime," receives a command from an exposed gangster to visit him at his hotel he night before he is to start on a fouriveek fishing trip. He becomes involved ^n a shooting in a hallway of the hotel, ^nd believing he has killed a man, hides |n the trunk of Miss Goddard, a guest of |he hotel, who is leaving that night to take Possession of a castle she has inherited in ^uba. He finds himself forthwith aboard ) steamer bound for that hot little island, iiccompanied by Alex, Willie Best, his iaiet. ' From then on it is love and horror — 'vith plenty of laughs thrown in for good 'neasure. Hope and Miss Goddard find the jreasure of the castle, and at the tag, f course decide to get married. There ire twists to the haunted house sequences hat have never been used before. Hans breier and Robert Usher, who built the sets lid an excellent job — they are really weird, 'atrons who bought tickets to the other Hope-Goddard scarer will never be sorry f they make an investment in this one. m'ch 3uinn, Willie Best, Pedro de Cordoba, Vir;inia Brissac, Noble Johnson, Tom Dugan, 'aul Fix, Lloyd Corrigan. CREDITS: Producer, Arthur Hornblow, Jr.; Director, George Marshall; Based on the 3lay by Paul Dickey and Charles Goddard; Screenplay, Walter DeLeon; Cameraman, Zharles Lang; Editor, Ellsworth Hoagland. DIRECTION, Fine. PHOTOGRAPHY, i, CAST: Bob Hope, Paulette Goddard, ^yiichard Carlson, Paul Lukas, Anthony lU ood. Calvin Anderson Dead Oklahoma City — Calvin Price Aniderson, 65, salesman for the Oklajihome Theater Supply Co., died at his home here. "Private Affairs" with Hugh Herbert, Nancy Kelly, Roland Young Universal 75 Mins. (HOLLYWOOD PREVIEW) FIRST-RATE COMEDY WITH PLENTY OF LAUGHS SHOULD GO OVER NICELY. With a pair of sure-fire laugh-getters like Hugh Herbert and Rola'iid Young, plus able direction and production, thiS picture should go over nicely. Burt Kelly, and his associate, Glenn Tryon, have a real clever little offering. The smooth, sensioie direction of Albert Rogell ties what might have proved a rather complicated plot together neatly, making the somewhat hard to believe circumstances entirely believable in the telling. Roland Young, disowned son of a prominent Boston family, is the most aristocratic board-boy in a Wall Street brokerage house, for fifteen years out ot contact with his father, Montagu Love, and his motherless daughter, Nancy Kelly. Suddenly he is confronted with a family problem when his daughter comes to him for advice as to whether or not she should jilt her Back-Bay fiance, G. P. Huntley, Jr., for a penniless law clerk, Robert Cummings, in her grandfather's office. Hugh Herbert becomes involved in the affair because of Young's inability to pay a dollar and forty cents fare in Herbert's cab. And as the story progresses, so does the affair, until Herbert and Young become partners because of the debt. The villain of the piece, Jonathan Hale, a broker of a shady reputation, because of Young's family connections, employs him as manager of a newly opened Boston office, and Young goes home to what he hopes will be success, but which turns out to be another failure, until the resourcefulness of his son-in-law to be, Cummings, through some quite far fetched machinations, saves the day, jails the villain, marries the girl, and reconciles Young to his long estranged father. Art direction by Jack Otterson, camera-work by Milton Krasner, and screenplay by Charles Grayson, Leonard Spiegelgass and Peter Milne are all good. CAST: Nancy Kelly, Hugh Herbert, Roland Young, Robert Cummings, Montagu Love, Jonathan Hale, Florence Shirley, G. P. Huntley, Jr., Dick Purcell, Leonard Carey, Mary Forbes, Douglas Wood, Granville Bates, Tim Ryan. CREDITS: Producer, Burt Kelly; Associate Producer, Glenn Tyron; Director, Albert S. Rogell; Based on a story by Walter Green; Screenplay, Charles Grayson, Leonard Spiegelgass and Peter Milne; Cameraman, Milton Krasner; Editor, Philip Cahn. DIRECTION, Good. PHOTOGRAPHY, Good. Lindsey Interests Will Build Miami Theater Miami, Fla. — Plans for a new theater building have been drawn by Charles Nieder, Miami architect, for the Allapattah Center, Inc. 0. G. Lindsey is president of the company. The theater is planned to seat 1,0(30 persons and work is to be started in June. Witters Construction Co. of this city has been been awarded the building contract. "Island Of Doomed Men" with Peter Lorre, Rochelle Hudson, Robert Wilcox Columbia 67 Mins. CRIMINAL THRILLER HAS GOOD ACTION AND AN ABLE CAST TO MAKE IT ENTERTAINING. An interesting story provides plenty of excitement and action in this new Columbia release. In addition, the story has a good locale on a tropical island. Exhibitors should find this one easy to sell as it IS a first-class criminal thriller, and the people who like this type of film will go tor it in a big way. Peter Lorre is fine as a cold-blooded killer, who enslaves paroled convicts to work his diamond mine and tortures his wife while not busy at other tasks. Robert Wilcox does a nice job as an FBI agent. A good supporting cast includes, Rochelle Hudson, Don Beddoe, vjeorge E. Stone and Charles Middleton. Charles Barton directs the picture with a good pace and sense of timing in getting the most amount of action and thrills possible. Wilcox is assigned to break Lorre's racket, that of taking paroled convicts in custody and enslaving them on his island. He meets another FBI man to get further details, and the other man is murdered. On his own, he has to go to jail for the crime as he can't prove his innocence. Lorre gets him paroled some time later and takes him to the island. From there on there is plenty of action and thrills winding up to a good climax when Lorre is killed. Wilcox frees the men and Miss Hudson to wind up his job. CAST: Peter Lorre, Robert Wilcox, Rochelle Hudson, George E. Stone, Don Beddoe, Kenneth MacDonald, Charles Middleton, Stanley Brown, Earl Gunn. CREDITS: Produced by Columbia; Director, Charles Barton; Original Screenplay, Robert D. Andrews; Cameraman, Benjamin Kline; Editor, James Sweeney. DIRECTION, Good. PHOTOGRAPHY, Good. Carolina TOA Hears Neely Report, Takes No Action Myrtle Beach, S. C— The TOA of North and South Carolina convention, which has just closed here, received a report on the recent Neely bill hearings in Washington from Lyle M. Wilson, of Roanoke Rapids, N. C, a director, but took no formal action. Co-operation of theater owners with the Federal Government during the present emergency was pledged by Ed Kuykendall, MPTOA prexy, in his convention talk. Chico Marx Hospitalized IVest Coast Bureau of THE FILM DAILY Hollywood — A streptococcus infection has sent Chico Marx to the Cedars of Lebanon Hospital for observation. He was stricken while on a fishing trip with one of his brothers. "Earthbound" with Warner Baxter, Andrea Leeds, Lynn Bari 20th-Fox 67 Mins. SUPERNATURAL YARN MISSES THE MARK DESPITE SINCERE ACTING BY AN ABLE CAST. Always a difficult theme to film effectively, that of a spirit image moving through a story, this film misses the mark despite the efforts of an able cast. However, exhibitors have some names to play with on marquees and they can also exploit the picture effectively. Warner Baxter, Andrea Leeds, Lynn Bari and Henry Wilcoxon head the cast, all of them performing capably. Charles Grapewin, Russell Hicks, Elizabeth Patterson and Christian Rub are prominent in the supporting cast. The direction was handled by Irving Pichel with the screenplay credited to John Howard Lawson and Samuel G. Engel. Baxter and Miss Leeds, happily married for five years, are spending a holiday in the Alps when he is summoned back to Paris by a telegram purportedly from Wilcoxon, a scientist friend. Baxter arrives only to find that he has actually been summoned by Lynn Bari, Wilcoxon's wife and an old flame. She accidentally kills him and Wilcoxon takes the blame. Baxter's spirit hovers around the scene and he tries to get a message through to his wife, but the only person with whom he can make contact is Charley Grapewin. However, after Wilcoxon is convicted Baxter finally gets a message through to Miss Leeds which leads her to the hiding place of the gun. Miss Bari confesses, Wilcoxon is exonerated and Baxter's spirit is at rest. CAST: Warner Baxter, Henry Wilcoxon, Andrea Leeds, Lynn Bari, Charles Grapewin, Elizabeth Patterson, Russel Hicks, Christian Rub, Ian Wolfe, Lester Scharff, Reginald Sheffield, Pedro De Cordoba. CREDITS: Executive Producer, Sol M. Wurtzel; Director, Irving Pichel; Screenplay, J. H. Lawson and S. G. Engel; Based on a story by Basil King; Cameraman, Lucien Andriot; Editor, Louis Loeffler. DIRECTION, Okay. PHOTOGRAPHY, Good. RKO Offering Big Pix In Met. Dual Houses A summer season of big attractions on double feature programs is being launched by the RKO circuit in Greater New York and Westchester under the supervision of John J. O'Connor. In an announcement yesterday, it was said that instead of holding outstanding pictures from the major companies until after Labor Day, RKO houses will present them as fast as they are available. Floste Buys in Dade City Dade City, Fla. — The Crescent Theater has been purchased by the Floste Corp., operating now in six other Florida towns and in ten spots in Georgia from F. 0. Mullen and A. W. Sprigg. Sprigg will retain his position as manager.