Film and Radio Guide (Oct 1945-Jun 1946)

38 FILM AND RADIO GUIDE Volume XII, No. 9 trap any man, gives them helpful hints. As Jesse Rogers, actually a switchman, but posing as “a railroad man,” Walter Brennan gives his best performance to date, ably aided by Dorothy Gish as his wife. One interesting episode shows President Grant (Reginald Sheffield) speaking to a Centennial audience. All in all, Ceuteiniial Si<nimer is a most amusing, colorful, and pleasing production. F. H. LAW ★ ★ ★ MONSIEUR BEAUCAIRE. Satiric force, based on the novel by Booth Torkington. Poromount. George Marshall, director. It is rather a refreshing idea to make a satire of this longcherished romance about the barber who was in reality a prince. Obviously, the teacher can have the class do some research to discover what of the original the script writers have retained for purposes of farce. With Bob Hope as the lead. Paramount has made a buffoon of the hero and a rollicking circus of the plot. If you can be amused by horseplay derived from placing a pauper in a prince’s shoes, and if it will tickle you to hear twentieth-century slang spoken at the court of Louis XV, you will get a great kick out of the modern version of Monsieur Beaucaire. But if speech anachronisms and beggar-as-king plot strike you as time-worn, you may be bored. CAROLYN HARROW Editor’s Note: When previewed at Westwood, California, before an audience of highschool and college students. Monsieur Beuucaire caused so much laughter that whole lengths (jf dialog were fi’equently drowned out. SPECTER OF THE ROSE. Psychological drama of a bollet dancer. Written, produced, and directed by Ben Hecht for Republic release. Highly recommended for mature students. (1) Ben Hecht’s Specter of the Rose is what we have come to expect from the better Continental studios and what we rarely get from Hollywood : a mature story, artistically depicted. None of the players belongs to the “star” group, and yet each actor has been picked with care by Hecht to convey his impression. Three cheers for Hecht and his American group! BENJAMIN HARROW (2) This is one of the most artistic films in any language. The script has humor and literary flavor; the acting shows great talent; the direction exhibits a gift for the dramatic and subtle. What with beautiful dancing, in addition to everything else, we have a movie apliealing to the esthetic sense as well as to the intellect. In this picture Hollywood, v i a Ben Hecht, has achieved a masterpiece. CAROLYN HARROW (3) It was a compelling development of a psychological theme, and I found myself thinking about it a great deal afterwards. Each one of the characters played into that central theme remarkably well. LENORE VAUGHN-EAMES (4) Ben Hecht’s Specter of the Rose is an important film. Not because subjective imagery and peculiar film syntax are new or unique. They are used infrequently and then generally in quiet places, off the main thoroughfare of film production. This kind of imagery is what the avant-garde movement .strove for throughout the twenties. I am thinking of such ava nt-gardists as Hans Richter, Fernand Leger, V’alter Rutt man, Rene Clair, Jean Renoir, Man Ray, Jean Cocteau. The movement was quiescent during the thirties, except for such occasional rumblings as Cocteau’s Blood of a Poet. Today (still quietly) Hans Richter, Max Ernst, Fernand Leger, Alexander Calder, Marcel Duchamp, and Man Ray are working in collaboration on an experimental avant-garde film. Other contemporary esoteric film activity is being carried on by Maya Deren, an experimentalist who has turned out three searching film.s — Meshes of the Afternoon, A Study in Choreography for Camera and At Lan/l. Miss Deren is in no way concerned with telling a story nor with entertainment in the accepted sense. Her whole purpose is to add a dimension of profundity to our perception of the world through the use of cinematic idiom. The importance of Specter of the Rose is that here, as in The Scoundrel and Tales of Manhattan, Hecht uses the poetic cinematic image right on the main thoroughfare of film production. The present film is important, too, because, while the avant-gardists were for the most part content with film poetry alone, it combines this poeti’y with a story. The soul is there but there is body, too. A body which popular audiences can appreciate and enjoy. FLORA RHETA SCHREIBER DEAD OF NIGHT. Psychalagical drama. Directars, Cavalcanti, Charles Crichton, Basil Deardon, and Robert Hamer. British film released by Universal. Recammended. When an English picture is good, it is superlatively good. This happens to be the case with Dead of Night, in which each of four characters relates the mo.st startling incident of his life. The stories are engrossing and in