Harrison's Reports (1939)

October 21, 1939 HARRISON'S REPORTS 167 "The Pride cf the Blue Grass" with James MeCallion, Edith Feliowes, Granville Bates {Warner Bros., Oct. 7 ; time, 64 min.) Lovers oi horses should enjoy this program picture very wed. There is considerable human interest, engendered by the lo>aity and the trustworthiness of the young hero, who had been accused wrongly of having "pulled" his horse in a race. '1 he horse who is the center of attraction is fine and proud, and Wins one's love. There is no romance, but there is a friendship between the young hero and a young girl, daughter ot the owner of the stables. The girl has laith in the young hero and, as a result of it, the young hero gets his chance to show his real character. There is a thrilling horse race : — "i he young heroine has faith in the young hero, despite his dead latner's bad reputation at race tracks. But her father, a horse breeder, refuses to employ him, and instructs his daughter not to have any dealings with him. The hero, when his house is auctioned off to pay his father's debts, manages to conceal a foal and, before departing, presents it to the young heroine. Months afterwards she hears that he had been arrested as a vagrant and goes to the judge, who was a friend of the family, and has him paroled in her custody. She then prevails upon her father to give him a job. The foal had by this time grown into a spirited horse, but no one except the hero could manage him. Without her father's knowledge, the heroine enters the horse in a race with the hero as tne jockey, and the horse wins it. The father is now sotten:-d toward tiic hero, and he allows him to ride the horse in the next race, in which he had bet heavily. The horse loses and the hero is accused of having pulled it. He is unable to convince any one of his innocence. Soon afterwards, however, the horse goes blind. The heroine's father orders that the horse be shot, but the hero hides him. The hero discovers that the horse, when mounted by him, would take any jump and, alter training him for a while, enters him in a steeplechase, fie wins the race. He thus reestablishes himself with everybody. The screen play is by Vincent Sherman. William McCann directed it. Suitability, Class A. "At the Circus" with the Marx Brothers (MGM, Oct. 20; 86 min.) It is about the worst Marx Bros, picture seen in years. Some excitement is caused in the closing scenes, where a ciicus is brought to a society woman's back yard. There is much horseplay in those scenes. The story is inconsequential : when Kenny Baker, a society fellow, buys a circus, he is disinherited. Wanting to modernize the show, he seeks to borrow $10,000. James Burke, his manager, knowing that, with $10,000 he could make the circus successful, steals the cash money. Thus Kenny is about to lose the circus. Chico, a handyman in the circus, engages Groucho to handle Kenny's legal affairs. With the aid of Chico and Harpo, lawyer Groucho manages to recover the money. Kenny eventually becomes engaged to Florence Rice, one of the circus performers. The screen play is by Irving Brecher; it was produced by Mervyn LeRoy, and directed by Edward Buzzell. Children should enjoy it, but hardly any adults. Suitability, Class A. "Three Sons" with Edward Ellis, William Gargan and J. Edward Bromberg (RKO, Oct. 13; running time, 12 min.) Although this picture has been produced as better than one of program grade, it is not good entertainment, by reason of the fact that none of the three sons turns out to be a worth-while person. Even the daughter fails to show any decent traits. It is the Lester Cohen novel "Sweepings," produced by RKO in 1933, with Lionel Barrymore as the father. That picture, too, turned out a poor entertainment, and proved a box office failure, for the very same reasons — because the main characters, with the exception of the father, are unsympathetic. Edward Ellis certainly fails to measure up with Lionel Barrymore; he does nothing but walk through the picture when he does not make speeches. His hard work to build a fortune for his children certainly proves a disappointment, not only to him, but also to the picture-goers. A little comedy here and there redeems the picture somewhat : — Edward Ellis and [Catherine Alexander (wife) arrive in Chicago with their four children just after the fire. They ope n a small drygoods store and in time they develop it into one of the biggest department stores in the west. The father dreamed of the day when his children would take ( barge of the business but he is sadly disappointed : the eldest son toured turope, spending money in pleasures ; although married, he had had an affair with a singer. The father's effort to make him break with her results in tragedy — the uneie is shot and killed by the woman. The daughter marries a Prince and goes through scandalous divorce proceedings. The second son is spineless. The third son, having become involved with a girl, leaves home and becomes a bum. 1 hus the father is left all alone. The fortune dwindles and the stock is about to be acquired by others when Bromberg steps in and buys it, donating hah of it to his former boss. Ellis dies, surrounded by his penitent children, who had been summoned home. the screen play was written by John Twist. Jack Hively directed it and Bob Sisk produced it. Virginia Vale is the daughter ; Kent Taylor, Robert Stanton and Dick Hogan, the sons. Because of the affairs of two of the sons, suitability, Class B. "Ninotchka" with Greta Garbo and Melvyn Douglas (MGM, Nov. 3 ; running time, 110 min.) "Ninotchka" is first class entertainment, and of an unusual kind. While it has a powerful romance, the story is in the main a travesty upon the way representatives of Soviet Russia do business in their dealings with the capitalistic world. It is not Soviet propaganda in the least; on the contrary, it "kids" the doctrines of Soviet Russia. The pleasure comes not so much from the "kidding" itself, but from the way it is done; and by Miss Garbo herself. Lleretofore, Miss Garbo has acted either in tragic or in dramatic roles, but this is the first time that she has undertaken a comedy role ; and she shows as great an ability. In her dry, unemotional way of expounding the philosophy of communistic Russia in business mattcis, she should split the sides of those who will see the picture. The romance between Greta and Melvyn is impressive ; Melvyn falls in love with her and at no time does he lose his courage in his determination to bring out the woman in her, penetrating the mask that had been superimposed on her by the Soviet philosophy. Sig Rumann, Felix Bressart, and Alexander Granach contribute a great deal of the comedy : — A committee of three representing the Soviet Board of Trade arrive in Paris to sell jewels that had been confiscated from Grand Duchess Swanna (Ina Claire), head of the White Russians in exile, to buy tractors with the proceeds ; the Committee is lodged in the Royal Suite of an expensive hotel. Ina is informed of it by a loyal hotel waiter and instructs her resourceful aristocratic boy-friend ( Melvyn Douglas) to stop the sale with an injunction. Although legally he is helpless, Melvyn manages to throw the question of the ownership of the jewels into the courts. The Russian comrades are having the time of their lives living in grand style when the arrival of Comrade Ninotchka (Greta Garbo) brings them to their senses. She permits no nonsense to divert her from her duty to the Soviet. Melvyn accidentally "bumps" against Greta in one of the streets of Paris and, struck by her beauty, pursues her, not knowing who she is. He takes her to the Eiffel Tower and to other places, but her veil of unemotionalism is not penetrated by a display of even the slightest pleasure; she takes every "capitalistic" thing indifferently. But Douglas falls in love with her and is determined to dig out the woman from within her and to make her fall in love with him. When she finds out who he is, she refuses to see him ; but he persists. Soon she melts ; she buys Parisian clothes and becomes transformed. And what is more, she kisses Melvyn. Through trickery the Grand Duchess gets the jewels and, possession being nine points of the law, she compels Comrade Greta to agree to depart for Russia immediately, leaving Douglas alone, in return for which she signs over the jewels. Greta returns to Russia with the other members of the committee, but she cannot forget Douglas, The Government sends the three Comrades to Constantin >ple on business but, when they arrive in that city, they spend their time in pleasure. The Commissar sends Greta to bring them back to their senses. When she arrives, her pleasure is indescribable, because Douglas was there to me.t her. It was he who had been entertaining the Comrades with lb.slim hope that the Government would take the very action it had taken before. The plot has been founded on a story by Melchior Lengyel ; the screen play was written by Chas. Bracket!; the picture was directed by Krnst Luhitsch. Every theatre should run it ; morally, it is suitable for everybody, but its appeal is directed chiefly to cultured picture-goers. Class A.