Harrison's Reports (1932)

22 HARRISON’S REPORTS February 6, 1932 “Tomorrow and Tomorrow” with Ruth Chatterton {Paramount, Feb. 5; running time, 78 min.) This has turned out an artistic picture, and should appeal mostly to class audiences. The sex situations have been handled delicately and are not offensive. There is much human interest and the characters arouse the sympathy of the audience. Although the heroine is unfaithful to her husband at one time, one can still sympathize with her for her husband did not understand her and in the hero she met the sort of man who was more fitted to her nature. There is one powerful situation. It is where the heroine’s child, injured by a fall from a horse, is in a coma from which the doctor cannot arouse him. It is the singing of a nursery song by the heroine that brings the child back to his senses : — The heroine, although in love with her husband, does not find the proper companionship with him. He loves her dearly but not in the way she wants him to. He is forever talking about his horses and business. The heroine is heart-broken because she cannot become a mother, and since her husband does not believe in adopting a child she feels her life is empty and she is restless. The hero, a famous doctor, who is to lecture in her town, is invited to stay in the heroine’s home during his visit there. He accepts. They become good friends and eventually fall in love with each other. He begs for her love but she resists him. The night before he is to leave they are left alone. Again he makes love to her and this time she does not resist him. She soon gives birth to a child. The heroine and her husband find their greatest joy in their love for their son. The boy is now seven years old and the husband is anxious to make a good horseman out of him but he is scared. He forces him to jump the horse and the boy is so frightened that he faints and falls. He recovers from the shock but is unhappy when he hears his father say he is a coward. Still ill, he determines to show him and rides the horse. After this he swoons and falls into a coma from which they cannot arouse him. The heroine sends for the hero and he goes to her assistance. He saves the child’s life. The heroine confesses to him that the child is his own, and that she still loves him. He pleads with her to go away with him, but she feels it would kill her husband and so she remains. The plot was adapted from the play by Philip Barry. It was directed by Richard Wallace. In the cast are Paul Lukas, Robert Ames, Harold Minjir, Tad Alexander, and others. The talk is clear. (Not a substitution.) Hardly suitable for children or for Sunday showing in small towns. Too slow for the masses. Women should enjoy it well. “High Pressure” with William Powell {Warner Bros., Jan. 30; running time, 12 min.) A good comedy of high pressure salesmanship. It moves at a fast pace and provides many laughs. Although the hero, a stock promoter, is given to making wild promises, he is fundamentally honest for he would not enter a stockselling scheme unless he thought that the proposition was legitimate. The manner in which he proceeds to make the business look like “a million dollars” causes many laughs. Towards the end there is some suspense; the hero and the man he had been selling the stock for realize that their invention is a fake for they discover that the inventor is a madman. One sympathizes with the heroine, who, although she extracts promises from the hero to give up his wild form of business, finds that it is in his blood and that she must accept him and his wild promotion ideas; — The hero, a stock promoter, becomes interested in a stock selling scheme in a company that is to produce synthetic rubber. He gets his organization together, teaches his salesmen high pressure methods, and starts the ball arolling by interesting the newspapers. He asks the owner of the business to bring the inventor up to go over the plans with him but he eannot locate the man. Much stock is sold but still the inventor is not to be found. The newspapers become skeptical ; so does the Better Business Bureau, as well as the big rubber eompany. The District Attorney intercedes and gets an injunction forbidding them to sell more stock. The inventor is finally found but tlie business man and the hero realize that he is a madman and that the rubber idea is just another one of his crazy notions. This means jail to them. Fortunately, the big rubber eompany offers them a large sum of money to go out of the business. They realize that he cannot make rubber from sewage but they feel his company is a nuisance and they are willing to spend the money to rid themselves of him. The hero realizes he gave the controlling interst in the stock to his sweetheart. He finds that she is to leave the country and be married to a South American gentleman. He races down to the pier just in time to get her. He forces her to go back with him for he really loves her, although he does not treat her the way she wants him to. He promises to change his business but the moment a new scheme is offered to him he cannot resist it. The plot was adapted from a story by S. J. Peters. It was directed by Mervyn LeRoy. In the cast are Evelyn Brent, George Sidney, (luy Kibbee, Evalyn Knapp, John Wray, Frank McHugh, and others. The talk is clear. (Not a substitution.) Suitable for children and for Sunday showing. “Trapped in a Submarine” {Brit. hit. Piet., Jan. 15; running time, 41 min.) Although there is no story connected with this picture, it is interesting and suspensive. But it should appeal especially to men ; it is too harrowing to appeal to women, for it shows men entombed in a sunken submarine, doubting whether they will ever get out alive. Since it was made with the cooperation of the British Navy the atmosphere is authentic. It shows the submarine leaving port, proceeding to its duty in foreign waters, and finally submerging. Every portion of the interior is shown from the men’s quarters to the control room. One sees the way the ship is manned, how it is brought to the surface and submerged again. And then one sees the submarine struck by an ocean liner. This rips a hole into its side, but before it sinks the crew in the forward compartment are able to make their escape. The submarine sinks and the rushing water clamps down the conning tower hatch. The men left in the submarine follow the orders of their superior officer. He tells them the only way they can possibly escape is first to flood the compartment, after which they will try to open the hatch and with the aid of their life saving apparatus, rise to the surface. News of the accident brings battle ships and cruisers to the spot where the submarine had sunk. Men in life boats cruise around hoping that the men will rise to the surface. In the meantime the men in the submarine courageously wait for the compartment to flood. When it is half-flooded they attempt to open the hatch. Two of the men pass through it but before the others can, it is clamped down again. The leader determines that they must W'ait until the compartment is entirely flooded. When this happens they are able to open the hatch again and this time the remaining crew, with the aid of their lifesaving apparatus, rise to the surface and all are rescued. Too exciting for sensitive children. Not bad for Sunday showing. “Bridegroom for Two” {Brit. Int., Jan. IS; running time, 72 min.) An entertaining English musical comedy farce. It is fastmoving and is filled with laughs from beginning to end. In addition, it introduces Gene (Jerrard, in the role of the harassed bridegroom. He is an extremely likeable person, has a good voice, which he makes good use of in some songs, and carries off the ridiculous comedy situations very well. Several of the situations are side-splitting. One of them is where the hero and another man are supposed to be dead, and the detective carries on an investigation. During the course of the investigation he holds a seance and w’hen the tw^o “dead” men appear he believes them to be ghosts : — The hero awakens on his wedding day to find that during a drunken spree the night before he had married a chorus girl (heroine). He cannot induce her to leave his home. She does not want money ; she loves him and she wants to stay W'ith him. Finally her parents arrive, at first furious that the hero had taken their daughter to his home, and then pacified when they learn he married her. Further complications arise. The heroine’s fiancee, a prizefighter, calls and demands his girl back. The hero tells him to take her but she refuses to go. The two men start fighting, finally falling from a balcony into the river. They are thought to be dead. The girl the hero was to have married claims she is the rightful heiress. A further fight ensues. Finally the two men to come to life ; they had never drowned. The hero appeases the prizefighter by giving him money. By this time he is in love with the heroine and does not want her to leave. The plot was adapted from a story by Fred Thompson and E. Paiilton. It was directed by Richard Eichberg. In the all English cast are Muriel Angelus, Margaret Yarde, Frank Stanmore. and others. The talk is clear. Suitable for children and for Sunday showing.