Film and Radio Guide (Oct 1945-Jun 1946)

November, 1945 FILM AND RADIO GUIDE 57 In actual life we have the stories of John B. Gough and of hundreds of others who suddenly reformed and became useful citizens. In fiction we have the story of Sidney Carton in Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, who gave his life in selfsacrifice because of a great love. In all these cases great and overwhelming forces changed men’s lives. The motion-picture story appears to violate good taste, verisimilitude, and dramatic art because of lack of motivation. The story is decidedly unpleasant, constantly emphasizing gross love of drink, personal degradation, and then the actual horrors of delirium tremens. Such dwelling upon the merely physical leaves no time to emphasize the coming of something better. The episodes do not make it reasonable that a young woman who has known a man for a short time only should cling to him when she sees him sinking lower and lower and becoming repulsive in appearance as well as actions. The events foreshadow no slowly developing power sufficient to bring about reformation. The man reforms because he wishes to write a book! This hardly accords with accounts in Harold Begbie’s Twice-Born Men or William James’s essay on The Sick Soul. Ray Milland and Jane Wyman, as the central characters, act their parts so well that it is a pity the script gave them less opportunity for the development of real power. — F. H. L. PALESTINE PROBLEM. Produced by The March of Time. Released by 20th Century-Fox. Recommended. The amazing developments in Palestine, brought about by Jews who, in comparatively recent years, have sought refuge in that land will astonish anyone who sees them presented in the October March of Time issue, Palestine Problem. Tel Aviv is shown to be a flourishing city of tall buildings and busy streets. The barren wastes of the ancient land have been irrigated and made to “blossom as the rose of Sharon.’’ Altogether, a numerous and happy people have made modern Palestine a land of prosperity. This very prosperity has brought not only a great increase in the Jewish population but also a great increase in the Arab population, drawn to Palestine by new opportunities for labor and profit. The new March of Time issue shows the Arabs, their ways of living, and their military power, and thus sets before the public the conflict of two races, doing this without favor or bias. Such a film presentation gives a vast amount of information and provides rich material for thought. — F. H. L. THE DOLLY SISTERS. Musical-extravaganza biography. 20th Century-Fox. Irving Cummings, Director. Recommended for the lighthearted. Thirty-three years ago this reviewer enjoyed the antics of the popular Dolly Sisters, a charming team of Hungarian dancers. Much less than thirty-three years ago he conducted a university course in short-story writing in which Marian Spitzer, one of the authors of the screen play. The Dolly Sisters, was a leading student. Little did he think that those two events would come together in 1945 in the form of a Technicolor motion-picture biography of the stars of yesteryear. Marian Spitzer and her coauthor, John Larkin, wove considerable plot into the story of the Hungarian sisters who, at about the age of eighteen, rose to the bright lights of Broadway, and later to marriage, one of them to an English duke. The old songs of years ago. Pm Always Chasing Rainbows, Dear Old Pal of Mme, East Side, West Side, Smiles, Mademoiselle from A'lmientiers , again come from Oscar Hammerstein’s Victoria Theatre in New York. In the picture play we again see Oscar Hammerstein and catch something of the spirit of longpast days. In the course of the production we see half a dozen or more exquisite Technicolor scenes in different parts of the United States and Europe, and also realistic views of the Folies Bergere in Paris, the Parisian home of the Dolly Sisters at the height of their fortunes, and the Ziegfield Midnight Roof. With 79 different sets and with 5,000 players helping in the filming, the production is lavish, with all the spectacular qualities of costume (and lack-of-costume) revues. Betty Grable and June Haver make ultra-blonde presentations of the Dolly Sisters, Roszicka and Jancsi. John Payne carries the leading male role and helps to weld together the plot of a deathless love that lasted from a chance meeting near Elmira, New York, through all the vagaries of stardom and divorce. For the light of heart, the lovers of the bright lights, this story of the Dolly Sisters has the glittering interest of the revue stage. A Note as to "The Dolly Sisters," by Mary Jane Hungerford, Associate Editor, "Educational Dance." The Dolly Sisters is a routine backstage story with the usual glamour, shallowness, and unreality. Conflict between a