The Film Daily (1930)

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Betty Compton in "The Legacy" Vitaphone No. 4270-4271 Time, 15 mins. Fair Musical Nothing astonishingly new in this one which brings in the old musical and dance stuff. Story has pretty girl entertainer inheriting a hotel, and if she operates it for so long she gets so much dough. She and her partners move in and engage out-of-work troupers as bell boys, etc. This accounts for the dancing. Miss Compton is charming in the principal role, both her dancing and vocal work clicking. Ethel Merman in "Her Future" Paramount Time, 9 mins. Excellent Song Specialty Besides the highly enjoyable singing of Ethel Merman, who is a very personable crooner, this novelty song number is staged on a scale so unique and out of the ordinary that it is bound to score one way or another. In a futuristic courtroom setting, Miss Merman appears on the stand before a judge who sits about 50 feet above. Her replies to the court are in the form of song, the key number being "My Future just Past," while "Sing, You Sinners" is used for the finale. The whole affair bears the stamp of class and quality, yet it is material that will appeal to the whole gang. Lucien Littlefield in "His Big Ambition" Vitaphone 4162-63 Time, 22 mins. Good Comedy In this series of "The Potters," Lucien Littlefield gets an ambition to become a doctor to relieve the dire penury he and his family are in after the collectors take his furniture away. First he lands a soda dispenser's job in a drug store. He tries to show off and eventually gets the gate. Then he launches out as a doctor, but of the veterinarian listing. A scene where everyone tries a toothbrush when the customer complains of the bristles is really funny. Littlefield and Lucille Ward do some good team work. A Clicker Exhibitors crying for laughs will get a substantial load from 'The Hot Air Merchant," onereel Paramount short featuring Charlie Ruggles in an "illustrated lecture" on the methods md wiles employed by gals at he game of landing a husband. The action is lively and Ruggles evokes steady laughter with his sparkling remarks. Will promote hilarity in any house. "School Daze" Vitaphone 4210 Time, 8 mins. Fair Musical Jack White acts as the school teacher and master of ceremonies in this act centered about a school room where various groups do some tap dancing, singing and wisecracking. Just about rates with the average song and dance material, plus some juvenile appeal due to setting and schoolroom manner of presentation. "A Royal Flush" Pathe Time, 21 mins. Falls Flat A pretty rickety comedy with the fun seeming to be too forced and unnatural throughout. It is all about a society climber who persuades her cook to impersonate a baroness who fails to show up at her ritzy party. So we have the spectacle of a notso-hot comedienne pulling all kinds of breaks as she moves among the Eddie Lambert in "Won to Lose" Vitaphone 1055-56 Time, 18 mins. Dull Rather dry subject with Eddie Lambert's humor falling flat. It concerns two gate crashers at a race track who agree to fix it for a certain horse to lose the race. Eddie, as the jockey, tries to lose the race, but the horse comes in first and they come in for a sound thrashing. "The Last Yard" Pathe Time, 11 mins. A Barb This is the first of the Knute Rockne Football Series. The famous football coach of Notre Dame University personally explains the various plays of his team, and delivers some mighty interesting comments and inside tips on the great American game. Rockne shapes up as a really good screen player himself, for he delivers his lines with a punch, and Slants on Shorts Probably at no time in the last three years has there been so much cross-current thought and discussion about short subjects. A comprehensive summing up of the situation will appear in THE FILM DAILY'S next Short Subjects Quarterly, out in two weeks. If you are interested in shorts, don't miss this issue. stylish guests, pretending to be the titled dame. This kind of material makes good farce when expertly treated, but here the fun is laid on thick with slapstick strokes, and becomes tiresome long before the close. It is too exaggerated to carry over the laughs, and so loses whatever punch it might have had in more expert hands. "Laundry Blues" Pathe Time, 9 mins. Clever Cartoon A very clever Aesop Fable, with the cartoon animals down in Chinatown. A quartette of harmonious laundrymen is featured, and their funny antics as they do their work to the accompaniment of weird Chink music and singing is among the best bits seen anywhere in the modern sound cartoon. Winds up in a general riot when one Chink tries to do a Rudy Vallee on the saxophone. Very clever, and also very funny. "In an Old World Garden" Industrial Time, 10 mins. Tuneful Number British International Pictures evidently made this short subject from an English musical comedy. The action all takes place in one scene, a garden, where the two principals sing the title song, which is very tuneful. Several double exposures picture the action of the song and the girl also does a dance number. Musical accompaniment is good and recording is by RCA Photophone. makes you feel the power and personality of the figure which has led his boys to victory season after season. Then the team is shown illustrating the different trick plays. Many are in slow motion so that the football fans can see clearly just how ever member of the team cooperates in putting over the play. Some very fine glass shots are shown of the team in the huddles, and you can hear just how they argue among themselves as to what the impending play is going to be. It is all very interesting and exciting, and carries a punch and a thrill equal to a big tense feature drama. If all the rest of the series shape up like this one, Pathe has one of the best short series of this or any other season. It's a darb. "Many Happy Returns" Vitaphone 105-556 Time, 18 mins. Fair Sketch A fine cast of players, including such popular Broadway names as Walter Connolly, Ferdinand Gottschalk and Made Evans, does its best to put over this sketch, but succeeds only fairly well due to shortcomings of the vehicle. The story concerns a faithful father whose wife and daughter don't remember his birthday. The women folks go out for the evening, leaving dad alone to work up his emotions over the oversight. After he has had his scene, the ladies return, having suddenly remembered the significance of the date. Ending seems to leave something to be desired. Pathe Audio Review No. 35 Done entirely in Pathechrome tint ed film, the color effects of this subject are very beautiful. Opens with a study of the pheasant, showing the hatching of the little chicks. Then comes "Marshland," a poeticallv beautiful pictorial study of the windblown marshes, showing the various reeds and wild flowers with beautiful photographic effects. The cameraman who shot this sequence was a real artist. Follows an interesting and familiar exposition of the average American family on a week-end holiday. Some are dashing madly for trains at the Grand Central, or splashing in the water at Coney Island. while other groups spend a "quiet" time in the auto jams along country roads on Sundays. A good travestj on the "day of rest" idea. Finishes with Tom Hogan's Marionettes showing modern and classic dance steps Robert L. Ripley in "Believe It or Not," No. 3 Vitaphone 1053 Time, 10 mins Mildly Engrossing Follows along the same lines as previous Ripley shorts, with the illustrations of the various subjects i getting only a mild rise due to the i difficulty of making them effective li through the manner of presentation • on the screen. Much of the material in this one is fairly familiar. Willard, the Man Who Grows, often seen in vaudeville, is one of the features of the program. "The Love That Kills". (Vagabond Adventure) Pathe Time, 10 mins Fine Travel Specialty In this number of the Vagabond Adventure series being turned out by Van Beuren, Tom Terris visits the Malay country and records some fine incidents among the rivers and swamps of that tropical land. Anions; them are shots of a village built on stilts, to be out of reach of high river tides; an East Indian Romeo and ! Juliet scene enacted though a bamboo flooring instead of under a balcony gathering sap from rubber trees; the rice industry, and a little tragedy involving the love of a native lad for a girl above his caste. A fine and unusually engrossing short. One From France As one of the first short subjects turned out by the Paramount Joinville studios in France "Clinique Musicale" looks promising. Though in French, it should appeal to most any audience because it is mostly a collection of singing and comedy — the basis being a dentist who does his yanking to the tune of vocal melody. Three singing nurses help the merriment.