Harrison's Reports (1949)

January 1, 1949 HARRISON'S REPORTS 3 "The Dark Past" with William Holden, Lee J. Cobb and Nina Foch (Columbia, January; time, 75 min.) Columbia has fashioned an exciting thriller out of this remake of "Blind Alley," which it produced in 1939. Like the old version, the new one is a powerful crook melodrama, in which psychoanalysis plays a prominent part. It holds one in tense suspense throughout because of the fact that a band of murderers endanger the lives of a group of decent people as part of a plan to escape capture. The suspense is heightened by the fact that one of the captives, a psychology professor, undertakes to destroy the gangster chief's self-confidence when he sees in his ruthless actions a fear that he was going insane. Lee J. Cobb is excellent as the professor; the manner in which he exposes the mental weaknesses of the gunman at the risk of being cold-bloodedly shot, keeps the action fraught with excitement throughout. William Holden, as the gangster chief, does very well, as do the other members of the fine supporting cast. The picture should make a strong supporting feature, and is even good enough to top a double-bill: — Holden, a notorious killer, escapes from jail with the warden as hostage, and is picked up by his sweetheart, Nina Foch, and two henchmen, Beery Kroeger and Robert Osterloh. After murdering the warden, they head for a deserted shack in the lake country to wait for a boat to take them away. Instead of going to the shack, however, they decide to invade the adjoining summer lodge owned by Lee J. Cobb who, with his wife, Lois Maxwell, had as house guests a group of friends. By threatening to kill any one who disobeyed his orders, Holden forces them to do his bidding. All are confined to their rooms except Cobb. His professional curiosity aroused by Holden's nervousness, Cobb determines to break him down psychologically. He learns from Nina that Holden was hounded by the same dream, and he leads the killer to believe that, unless he placed himself in his hands for a cure, he would go insane. He gradually destroys Holden's self-confidence by proving to him that his mental illness stemmed from childhood, at which time he had betrayed his father, whom he hated, to the police. Meanwhile Kathryn Card, Cobb's maid, had escaped and had notified the police. When the police surround the house, Holden determines to shoot it out with them, but he finds his superiority complex gone and is unable to pull the trigger. He and his confederates are captured. The screen play was written by Philip MacDonald, Michael Blankfort, and Albert Duffy, and adapted by Malvin Ward and Oscar Saul, based on James Warwick's stage play. Buddy Adler produced it, and Rudolph Mate directed it. The cast includes Adele Jergens, Stephen Dunne, Steven Geray, Wilton Graff and others. Adult fare. "Trouble Makers" with the Bowery Boys (Monogram, Jan. 2; time, 66 min.) This latest "Bowery Boys" comedy-melodrama is one of the better pictures in the series, and should go over pretty well as a supporting feature. This time the boys, while operating a sidewalk telescope business, see a man being murdered in a hotel room several blocks away, and become involved in all sorts of situations when they report the murder to the police but no body is found. How Leo Gorcey and Hunts Hall solve the mystery by obtaining jobs in the hotel as bellhops gives rise to many comical situations in which they become mixed up with several gangsters responsible for the crime. One sequence that will draw hilarious laughter and give the audience many thrills is where Gorcey and Hall find themselves trapped on the narrow ledge of the hotel building high above the street, desperately trying to escape the pursuing gangsters; this sequence is done in the best "Safety Last" manner. Lionel Stander, as a pugnacious gangster, provokes considerable laughter. Much comedy stems also from the fact that the boys, in their efforts to help the career of their friend, Gabriel Dell, a rookie cop, get him into hot water with his superior officers. The action is fast all the way through and it has more than a fair share of excitement and suspense. It was produced by Jan Grippo and directed by Reginald LeBorg from a screen play by Edniond Seward, Tim Ryan and Gerald Schnitzcr, based on Mr. Schnitzer's original story. The cast includes Frankie Darro, John Ridgely, Helen Parrish, Fritz Field and others. Suitable for the entire family. "Portrait of Jennie" with Jennifer Jones, Joseph Cotten and Ethel Barrymore (Selznic\ Rel. Org., January; time, 86 min.) Cultured picture-goers should enjoy this super-production highly, but its reception by a substantial section of the rank and file, particularly 'teen-agers, is doubtful, for the story is slight and the action slow. Some of those who will like it will, no doubt, find meaning in every platitude uttered in the off-screen narration as well as in some of the dialogue, such as, for instance: "Since the beginning, man has looked into the awesome reaches of infinity and asked the eternal questions': 'What is time . . . and what is space? . . . What is life . . . and what is death?' " As a matter of fact, in the beginning man was savage and could not have asked himself such questions, being too busy slugging an enemy tribesman on the head, robbing him of his raw meat, and gorging himself on it. The mood of the story is sombre, but a sweet sentiment runs all the way through, and this should appeal to the majority of the women patrons. But since the story is a sort of fantasy, in that it deals with the romance of two young persons of two different generations, it is doubtful if it will impress most of the picture-goers, even though the love scenes are effective. The storm scenes are terrifying. Mr. Selznick has employed all the artifices of camera and sound to make them such, and where possible, he plans to have the storm sequences shown in theatres on an enlarged screen, such as was done at the preview. No fault can be found with the acting. The only comedy sequence is that in the saloon, where David Wayne arouses the patriotism of the Irish: — Joseph Cotten, a struggling artist, offers to sell several of his paintings, mostly landscapes, to Cecil Kellaway, an art dealer. Kellaway finds them unsuitable for his gallery, but Ethel Barrymore, his partner, buys one to encourage him, and tells him that his work lacked love. With the money obtained from the sale, Cotten invites David Wayne, a taxi-driver friend, to the saloon of Albert Sharpe for luncheon. There, Wayne arouses Sharpe's Irish patriotism and induces him to commission Cotten to paint a mural of Michael Collins, the great Irish patriot, leading the Irish to battle against the British. While Sharpe's Irish customers celebrate the unveiling of the mural, Cotten slips out and goes to Central Park. He finds a package on one of the benches and, as he starts to open it, he is approached by a young girl (Jennifer Jones), who tells him that the package was hers. They start a friendly conversation and she tells him that she is the daughter of two trapeze artists playing at the Hammerstein Theatre, which had ceased to exist long before. Puzzled, Cotten attributes her statement to the fact that she is only a child. She asks him to keep the package and, after promising to return, vanishes. In the package he finds a silk scarf wrapped in a newspaper dated 1910. Still puzzled, he draws a sketch of the girl, and sells it to Miss Barrymore for fifty dollars, for she finds in it traces of awakening art. Jennifer appears to Cotten and disappears several times, each time much older than before. She tells him that in every generation there is a man who loves a women deathlessly, that sometimes the two never meet in life, that she had always been lonely, and that she had returned to earth to find him because she knew that he, too, was lonely. She eventually informs him that she must part from him because her aunt was taking her away. Unable to stand the separation, Cotten, from some chance remarks, comes to the conclusion that she had gone to Cape Cod, and follows her there. Local fishermen inform him that Jennifer had died years previously, but he believes that he will come upon her again. He hires a boat and heads towards a lighthouse. A sudden storm breaks out in all its fury and smashes the boat. Thrown on the rocks, he calls out for his beloved. She answers from a boat that is smashed by the waves and, as he tries to reach her, she is dragged under to her death. Convinced that his strange romance had been real, Cotten turns his attention to his painting of Jennifer, which by this time had been acclaimed as a masterpiece. The picture was produced by David O. Selznick. William Dieterle directed it from a screen play by Paul Osborn and Peter Bcrneis, based on the book by Robert Nathan. Among the others in the cast are Florence Bates, Felix Brcssart, Lillian Gish, Robert Dudley and Henry Hull. Suitable for the entire family. "Wa^e of the Red Witch," Republic — a very good sea adventure and melodrama. Full review next week.