The Film Daily (1930)

THE 14 ■<MH DAILV Sunday, July 20, 1930 William Powell in "For the Defense" Paramount Time, 1 hr., 5 mins. WILLIAM POWELL PUTS OVER STRONG CHARACTERIZATION OF SLICK ATTORNEY FOR RACKETEERS IN CLEVERLY TOLD STORY. FINE PROGRAMMER. An intelligent and interesting storywell constructed, with several suspense situations and good dramatic climaxes. William Powell is a clever lawyer who handles cases for the underworld, and the district attorney has been trying to get the goods on him but he is too clever. His sweetheart, (Kay Francis), an actress, is being importuned by a nice rich youth to marry him. While driving her car one night, she kills a pedestrian, and the youth who is with her and drunk, gets her out of the car and assumes the blame. Powell as the attorney is persuaded by the girl to handle the case, and bribes a juror to keep the boy from going up the river. The district attorney pins the bribe on Powell, and he instead is sent up. Finishes with the girl promising to wait for his release. Some clever court action and tense situations with a kick. Cast : William Powell, Kay Francis, Scott Kolk, William B. Davidson. John Elliott, Thomas E. Jackson. Harry Walker. James Finlayson, Charles West. Charles Sullivan. Ernest S. Adams, Bertram Marburgh, Edward LeSaint. Director, John Cromwell; Author, Charles Furthmann; Adaptor, Oliver H. P. Garrett; Dialoguer. the same ; Editor, George Nichols ; Cameraman, Charles Lang. Direction, clever. Photography, fine. "Wild Company" Fox Time 1 hr., 11 mins. GOOD FAMILY PICTURE SHOWING EVILS OF WILD COMPANY WORKED OUT IN INTERESTING PLOT. NICE SUMMER NUMBER. This is one of those nice clean little stories that the censors and blue-stockings can find no possible objection to, showing the evils of rich parents allowing their sons to run wild and get mixed up in bad company. H. B. Warner as the father and Frank Albertson as the son do some fine acting and put over the story entertainingly. The son is used by a racketeer and his girl to cover them through his father's influence as the town's leading citizen. In a robbery of a night club, the proprietor is killed, and the racketeer and the girl try to hang the crime on the boy. Then follows the court scene, and after the jury brings in a verdict of manslaughter, the judge suspends sentence with a moral dissertation on the duties of rich parents to keep their boys from wild company. Nothing to get excited about, but passable entertainment that will appeal to home folks. Cast: Frank Albertson, H. B. Warner, Sharon Lynn, Joyce Compton, Claire McDowell, Mildred Van Dorn, Richard Keene, Frances McCoy, Kenneth Thomson. Director, Leo McCarey ; Authors, John Stone, Bradley King; Adaptor, Bradley King; Dialoguer, the same; Editor, Clyde Carruthj Cameraman, L. W. O'Connell; Monitor Man, Alfred Bruzlin. Direction, satisfactory. Photography, good. I "Hell's Island" With Ralph Graves and Jack Holt Columbia Time, 1 hr., 19 mins. A BOX OFFICE NATURAL FOR ENTERTAINMENT. GOOD DIRECTION AND ACTING, WITH GRAVES AND HOLT GOING OVER AS WISECRACKING RIVALS. Melodrama. Endowed with a generous supply of good acting, comedy, drama, pathos and plenty of wisecracking, this melodrama with Foreign Legion background is corking entertainment. Holt and Graves are at it again hammer and tongs trying to outsmart and beat each other to the wisecrack in order to win Dorothy Sebastian. There is a novel twist, where Holt is shot in the back by a Riff and, seeing Graves' smoking rifle, blames him for the deed, when actually his buddy fired at the Riff. A strong climax is worked up when the girl marries Holt to get to Hell's Island, where she can be near her sweetheart. Learning this, Holt, who has come as a guard to work off two years in the Legion while Graves is serving 10 for hitting his superior when he saved Holt, plans Grave's escape, but with a selfish motive in mind. How Holt changes his plans at the sacrifice of his own life is suspenseful stuff. Cast : Jack Holt, Ralph Graves, Dorothy Sebastian, Richard Cramer, Harry Allen, Lionel Belmore, Otto Lang, Carl Stockdale. Director, Edward Sloman ; Author, Tom Buckingham, Adaptor, Joe Swerling; Dialoguer, same; Editor, same; Cameraman, Ted Tetzlaff: Monitor Man, G. R. Cooper. Direction, good. Photography, fine. "Kathleen Mavourneen" Tiffany Time, 1 hr., 5 mins. WEAK NUMBER PLUGGING THE IRISH ANGLE WITHOUT MUCH SUCCESS. STORY LACKS PUNCH AND ACTING WEAK. FOR SMALL STANDS. Adapted from a stage play by Dion Boucicault. A light weight film built for the Irish vote, but lacking anything of much consequence to stretch out to an hour's entertainment. Sally O'Neill plays the part of the little colleen who comes from Ireland to marry the sweetheart of her youth. They throw a party at the home of her aunt and uncle, where she meets the big ward boss, who falls in love with her. Later at a party at his swell Long Island estate he proposes to her. She makes him wait ten minutes for an answer, and then follows a dream sequence where the ward boss is revealed to her as a wicked racketeer. Thus saved, she goes floppo into the arms of her sweetheart — who is down the cellar nixing the broken water pipes, he being a plumber. Just a lot of the old buncombe served that way. Several Irish songs sung by the guests constitute about the only bright spot in the film. Cast: Sally O'Neil. Charles Delaney, Robert Elliott, Aggie Herring,. Walter Perry, Francis Ford. Director, Albert Ray: Author, Dion Boucicault ; Dialoguer, not listed ; Editor, not listed : Adaptor, not listed ; Cameraman, Harry Jackson. Direction, poor. Photography, all right. <« 'Spring is Here" First National Time, 1 hr., 5 mins. LIGHT MUSICAL AND SENTIMENTAL NUMBER JUST A FILLER FOR NEIGHBORHOODS. CARRIES FAIR AMOUNT OF LAUGHS. This was adapted from the musical play by Owen Davis. Its main trouble seems to be just that. It is essentially a stage production and they try to change it over into a screen production but the stage settings don't fit into the picture technique calling for a running story with action. Every once in a while the principals stop in the middle of the action to burst into lyric harmony. The story tells of a romantic girl who is fed up on her unromantic sweetheart and gives him the air in favor of a more sentimental suitor. Finally the hero gets wise to himself, flirts around with his girl's friends, and then she begins to take notice of him. Ford Sterling as the stern papa trying to boss his wife and two daughters furnish the laughs, also the best acting. Louise Fazenda as the wife is a close second. Just a light frappe. Cast: T^awrence Gray, Alexander Gray, Bernice Clair, Ford Sterling. Louise Fazenda, Inez Courtney, Natalie Moorhead, Frank Albertson, Gretchen Thomas. Director, John Francis Dillon ; Author, Owen Davis ; Dialoguer, James A. Starr ; Adaptor, the same ; Editor, not listed ; Cameraman, Lee Garmes. Direction, fair. Photography, all right. Lonise Dresser in "Three Sisters" Fox Time, 1 hr., 17 mins. HEAVY DRAMA FILLED WITH TEARS AND SENTIMENT THAT DRAGS WITH RAMBLING STORY. A FILLER FOR SMALL HOUSES. A rambling and disjointed story that seems to have no particular aim. All about a mother (Louise Dresser) with three daughters in Italy who marry and leave her during the war. The father of one is killed in action, a baby is born, and the father's aristocratic parents deprive the grandma of the babe, the mother having died in childbirth. The other two daughters have drifted to America with their hubbies, and the old lady is left all alone to shift for herself. There is a sentimental old gent who is always consoling her and sharing her sorrows. Also a heavy villain walks through the proceedings, appropriating the money that one of the successful sons-in-law in America forwards for the old lady's support. Then the finale has all hands miraculously meet in a restaurant in Rome, where the villain gets his, and the rest sit down to a happy reunion dinner with lots of typical Italain noise. Cast: Louise Dresser, Tom Patricola, Kenneth MacKenna, Joyce Compton, June Collyer, Addie McPhall, Clifford Saum, Paul I'orcasi, John Sainpolis, Sidney De Grey. Director, Paul Sloane : Authors, George Brooks, Marion Orth ; Adaptors, James K. McGuiness, George Brooks; Dialoguers, the same; Cameraman, L. W. O'Connell. Direction, heavy. Photography, fair. «C *» hr. Slums of Tokyo' (Silent) Moviegraphs, Inc. Time, 1 INTEREST COMPELLING JAPANESE PRODUCTION. STORY OF BROTHER AND SISTER LOVE IN TOKYO'S AMUSEMENT PARK CENTER. Labeled as the best film achievement of Japan to date, this melodramatic tale of Tokyo's gayety center, and the seamy life that is right next door to it, has several points of unique interest and dramatic power. Chief characters in the story are a poor but personable youth, who is a slave to a most heartless geisha vampire, and the boy's sister, a pathetic and appealing little girl who arouses immediate sympathy and carries it through the picture. When the lovesick lad is blinded in a fight with the vamp's latest favorite, the sister's devotion and spirit of sacrifice know no bounds. She even is about to give in to the entreaties of the villain, but ends by killing him in defense, just as the brother regains his eyesight. The pantomimic work is of exceptional interest, especially the restrained acting of the sister, and the contrasting of amusement park's merry whirl with the squalor on its fringe is accomplished with particular effectiveness. Cast: A. Tschihaya, J. Bandoh, Y. Ogawa, I. Sohma. Director, Teinosuke Kinogasa ; Author, same ; Adaptor, same ; Editor, same ; English editor, Martin J. Lewis, Titler, Joseph R. Fleisler ; Cameraman, not stated. Direction, fine. Photography, excellent. "Docks of Hamburg" (Silent) Ufa Time, 1 hr., 16 mins. MILDLY INTERESTING GERMAN WATERFRONT DRAMA WITH CROOK AND CABARETGIRL PLOT. HAS SOME ELEMENTS OF POPULAR APPEAL. With a waterfront cabaret locale and crook activities that are easy to grasp, this German-made production carries a story of fairly general interest though technically below the U. S. average. Principal action concerns a handsome sailor who falls in love with a cabaret entertainer, member of the crime gang, who stage a robbery on his ship, cause the lad to be fired, bring him into their fold, and later frame a murder on him following a scrap with one of his rivals for the girl's favors. The youth wins out in the end, however, with the real murderer being identified and the boy and girl deciding to go straight together. Good atmosphere, some nice acting by the principals, and a tendency to restrain rather than exaggerate the melodramatics of the situations are among the chiefly enjoyable merits of the picture. The story itself contains little that is new to film audiences. Cast: Jenny Jugo, Willy Fritsch, Fritz Albert, Betty Astor, Max Maximilian. Director, Erick Waschneck ; Author, Adaptor, and Titler, B. E. Luethge ; Editor, Alfred Zeisler; Cameraman, Friedel BehnGrund. Direction, fair. Photography, good.