Film and Radio Guide (Oct 1945-Jun 1946)

Moy, T946 FILM AND RADIO GUIDE 49 and pelicans. As he finishes, the gull flies in with news that he is about to be discovered by Professor Tetti Tatti, the great impressario of the Metropolitan. The whale is delighted with this good news, because he loves to sing opera. He waves goodbye to his friends and goes in search of Tetti Tatti. When he finds him, he serenades him first with “Figaro” . . . and then with “Lucia” (in three voices). Although the songs completely win over the crew, Tetti Tatti is more convinced than ever that the whale has swallowed an opera singer — in fact, three opera singers. He is determined to rescue them. As he struggles with his crew, trying to reach the harpoon gun to kill his new discovery, the narrator says: “Why can’t THEY BEAT SOME SENSE INTO Tetti Tatti? Here he is trying TO HARPOON HIS BIGGEST DISCOVERY. Imagine what a SENSATION HE WOULD BE IN THE Met !” We dissolve into the Metropolitan, with the whale as a sensation, as he sings the roles of “Lucia,” “Mephistopheles,” “Tristan & Isolde,” and “PagLiACCi” — winning acclaim from the audience ; from his friends the seals, pelicans, and seagulls; from Tetti Tatti and his crew ; and from the newspapers and magazines of New York — and even the rest of the world. At the height of this acclaim, the dream disintegrates. An explosion wipes out the whale, revealing Tetti Tatti at the harpoon. He yells with glee as the rope plays out. Three sailors jump on him. The whale, with the harpoon stuck in his chest, dives and swims off into the distance. The boat is on the crest of a wave as the harpoon rope pays out and pulls taut. The gun breaks loose from the deck and hits the water, causing a big splash. The water is stormy, and lightning is flashing in the sky. Willie (the whale) is in the extreme distance, silhouetted by a lightning flash. There are more stormy waves, lightning bolts, and flashes. The waves are then highlighted, and the water is whipped into extreme fury. The storm begins to taper and a seagull comes into the scene. He flies down toward the water searchingly, in a hunt for Willie. He circles the watery grave of Willie, which is marked by the debris of the harpoon gun. The seagull lands on the debris and looks dejectedly at the spot where the whale sank to the ocean depths. A glow from heaven strikes the seagull, and he looks up with resignation. Finally, Willie is revealed singing on a celestial stage. IRIS OUT. In Briefer Review CLUNY BROWN. Comedy. 20th-Fox. Ernst Lubitsch, Director. Screen Ploy by Samuel Hoffenstein and Elizabeth Reinhardt. Based an a novel by Margery Sharp. Strongly recommended for all. “Perfectly delightful humor” anyone well may say of Climy Broum, a brilliantly produced motion-picture play, in which Jennifer Jones and Charles Boyer play the leading parts, admirably aided by Sir C. Aubrey Smith, Richard Haydn, Helen Walker, Peter Lawford, Reginald Gardiner, Reginald Owen, Margaret Bannerman, and others of a large cast. Practically every character in Cliinij Brown is humorous, dif ferent from all others, fantastic, and yet within the bounds of probability. There is a laugh at every moment. Seldom, indeed, has a motion picture play brought together such a number of oddities in human nature, caricatures, to be sure, but sufficiently near to the actual to be fantastically real. In this first comedy role in which Jennifer Jones has appeared, she plays her part with distinction, most of the time wearing a parlor maid’s costume, and only at the end appearing in rich attire that sets off her striking beauty. The novel upon which the mo tion-picture play is based made an instant hit in its serial form, and quickly became a best seller and Book-of-the-Month-Club selection. In spite of that fact, the story is so bizarre and so slight in event that only the most skilled direction, the best cast, and the most effective acting could give it the delicious humor that it has in motion-picture form. An utterly unsophisticated English girl (Jennifer Jones) with an ambition to be a plumber and to mend kitchen sinks, suddenly becomes a parlor maid in the house of a British lord. There, in a “frightfully formal.