Harrison's Reports (1948)

138 HARRISON'S REPORTS X August 28, 1948 "A Song is Born" with Danny Kaye and Virginia Mayo (RKO, no releoie date set; time, 112 mm.) Producer Samuel Goldwyn has given his usual lavish touch to this latest Danny Kaye Technicolor comedy with music, which is a remake of "Ball of Fire," produced by Goldwyn in 1941. As entertainment, it is very good in some spots, dull in others, and on the whole somewhat disappointing. The chief fault with the picture seems to be the fact that Kaye"s varied talents have not been utilized fully. The picture starts off in a promising way in the early reels, when Kaye, as a young but mild-mannered music professor, meets with a group of famous jazz musicians to familiarize himself with modern music, but the second half, which deals with his falling in love with a flashy cabaret singer and becoming involved with her gangster friends, is as frequently dull as it is bright. The fact that Kaye is not really given an opportunity to let loose with his comedy antics, or to sing even one song in his inimitable manner, will no doubt disappoint the picture-goer. On the credit side of the picture is a wealth of musical talent that should prove a delight to those who like their music "hot." Benny Goodman, Tonuny Dorsey, Louis Armstrong, Lionel Hampton, Charlie Barnet, Mel Powell, Buck y Bubbles, The Page Cavanaugh Trio, Golden Gate Quartet, and Russo and the Samba Kings are among those who join together for some of the hottest "jam" sessions ever filmed. Their names should, of course, help the box-office considerably: — Danny Kaye and six other professors (Benny Goodman, Hugh Herbert, Felix Bressart, Ludwig Stossel, J. Edward Bromberg, and O. Z. Whitehead) work together for nine years compiling an encyclopedia of music. They live in an old New York brownstone house donated by their benefactor (Mary Fields) and ruled over by their housekeeper, Esther Dale. When two window washers (Buck y Bubbles) introduce them to "jive" music, Kaye decides to tour the nightclubs to explore the world of jazz. In addition to inviting numerous band leaders to call on him, Kaye invites also Virginia Mayo, a torch singer, who dismisses him. But when Virginia learns that the District Attorney wanted her as a materia! witness in an investigation started against her gangster boy-friend (Steve Cochran), she decides to use Kayes place as a hideout. Her arrival at the house upsets the entire household when the professors fall under her charm. Kaye falls in love with her, and she leads him on in order to secure her stay in the house. Seeking to bring Virginia to New Jersey, where he was in hiding, so that he could marry her, Cochran telephones her and works out a plan whereby Kaye is led to believe that Cochran was her father and that he wanted Kaye and his professor friends to bring Virginia to New Jersey for her marriage to Kaye. Once in New Jersey, Kaye learns the truth and returns home disillusioned. Virginia, ashamed and realizing her love for Kaye, refuses to marry Cochran. To force the issue, the gangster and his henchmen invade Kaye's house and threaten to kill him. compelling Virginia to consent to the marriage. But Kaye's musical friends, realizing that Virginia loved him, outwit the gangsters in time to stop the ceremony and to see that Kaye marries Virginia. Samuel Goldwyn produced it and Howard Hawks directed it. No screen play credits are given. Adult fare. "For the Love of Mary" with Deanna Durbin and Edmond O'Brien ( UniversaWntermitional, September; time. 90 min.) A frothy but pleasant enough romantic comedy. The idea of having the President of the United States as well as several Supreme Court Justices concerned over the romantic affairs of a switchboard operator is rather fanciful, but if one can put himself into the mood to accept the story for what it is he should get a fair share of chuckles out of the plot's contrivances. As the switchboard operator, Deanna Durbin adequately meets the demands of the role, and her singing, particularly her rendition of "Largo Al Factotum," from "The Barber of Seville," is dehghtful. In the picture's favor are the breezy quality and the steady moving action : — After breaking her engagement to Jeffrey Lynn, a young Government lawyer, whom she had seen with another girl, Deanna, a Supreme Court switch'ooard operator, switches to a similar position in the White House. Several of the Justices plead Lynn's case with Deanna, explaining that he had seen the other girl in the line of duty, but she remains firm in her refusal to see him. Deanna finds an additional problem in Don Taylor, a young icthyologist, who claimed ownership of a small Pacific island, where his father had established a marine laboratory. The Navy blocked his attempts to get back to the island, and he had been trying vainly to reach the President for days. Deanna is assigned to prevent his calls from reaching the President. As if parrying Taylor, Lynn, and the Supreme Court Justices were not enough, Deanna is faced with a new problem when the President, having overheard her difficulties when she refuses to accompanying Lynn to a birthday party in honor of one of the Justices, assigns Lieut. Edmond O'Brien, a Naval aide, to escort her to the party. In the course of events, Deanna finds herself in a romantic whirl, pursued by O'Brien, Taylor, and Lynn but unable to make up her mind about any of them. The situation does not resolve itself until after a series of mixups in which the Government discovers that Taylor's claim to the island was vahd; that he was not a citizen of the United States; and that the Navy, which had built a $300,000,000 naval base on the island, was a squatter on foreign territory. Government officials appeal to Deanna to help them out of their dilemma, and it all ends with Taylor negotiating an agreement to sell the island on the condition that O'Brien be given permanent sea duty, and that Lynn be assigned to a judicial post 1500 miles distant from Washington. With competition eliminated, Taylor embraces Deanna. Robert Arthur produced it and Frederick De Cordova directed it from an original screen play by Oscar Brodney. The cast includes Ray Collins, Hugo Haas, Harry Davenport, Louise Beavers and others. Unobjectionable morally. "Rope" with James Stewart, John Dall and Farley Granger (Warner Bros., September 25; time, 80 mm.) An exceptionally fine psychological thriller, photographed in Technicolor. But whether or not it will prove to be a popular picture is questionable, for as entertainment it has a morbid quality that has seldom, if ever, been surpassed on the screen; it revolves around two intellectual but degenerate undergraduates who, seeking a thrill, murder a classmate, hide his body in a living room chest, then give a party during which they serve refreshments to the victim's father and his friends from the top of the chest — all designed to prolong the thrill of the murder. The picture will undoubtedly please those who are morbidly inclined, as well as the intelligentsia who will appreciate a thought-provoking discourse on the subject of murder and its Nietzschean justification outside the law. Technically, the picture is a masterpiece. Moviegoers who expect the unusual from Alfred Hitchcock will not be disappointed, for he has handled the story in a most unique way; the action has a time lapse of 80 minutes, the exact running time of the film, and from the opening to the closing scenes the camera follows the players within the hmits of a three-room apartment in what may be described as a continuous take. It is an ingenious technique, and under Hitchcock's superb handhng it serves to heighten the atmosphere of mounting suspense and suspicion. The acting is excellent; — John Dall and Farley Granger strangle their friend, Dick Hogan.and conceal his body in a chest in the living room of Dall's apartment. In the opinion of his murderers, the dead man was an intellectual inferior and a weakling of no consequence in their distorted pattern of life. They had committed the crime, not for vengeance or profit, but for a thrill. To carry out what they believed was the perfect crime, and to enhance and prolong their thrill, the two killers prepare for a scheduled party in the apartment, to which they had invited Cedric Hardwicke, the boy's father; Joan Chandler, his fiancee; Constance Collier, his aunt; James Stewart, a publisher, who had been their housemaster in prep school; and several other friends of the dead man. During the party, Dall, drunk with morbid excitement, deliberately leads his guests to speculate about Hogan's absence from the party, while Granger, emotionally muddled, is on the verge of cracking up. Stewart, who had had many philosophical discussions with the two men on the subject of the realistic concepts of good and evil, believes that the two men had played a prank on the missing Hogan, but Granger's erratic behavior causes him to suspect that they had done away with their friend. Stewart leaves the party with the other guests, but returns on a pretense just as the killers prepare to dispose of the body. A cat and mouse game between Stewart and the two men ends in a struggle, during which Stewart locates the body. After denouncing them for their brutal act and for their smug assumprion of superiority, Stewart, holding them at bay, summons the police. Alfred Hitchcock directed it from a screen play by Arthur Laurents, based on the play by Patrick Hamilton. Strictly adult fare.