Harrison's Reports (1950)

July 8, 1950 HARRISON'S REPORTS 107 On the whole, however, the picture is good enough to serve as the top feature of a double bill in secondary situations : — Price, an ambitious land office clerk in Arizona, conceives a plan to take over the entire territory of Arizona by means of a forged Spanish land grant. To execute his plan, he builds a fake landmark in the desert and forges birth records to establish an orphan girl, cared for by a poor farmer, as the rightful heir to Arizona by reason of a Spanish grant made to her ancestors by King Ferdinand VI of Spain. Price arranges for the child to be raised and educated by Beulah Bondi, a governess, then sets out for Spain, where he enters a monastery as a monk for the purpose of altering Fifteenth Century land grant records, which were kept in the monastery's library. He ac' complishes his mission after a period of three years, then leaves to forge and alter other necessary documents scattered in different parts of Mexico and Latin America, all of which he does by cheating, bribing and making love to several women. His work finished, Price returns to Arizona, where he marries the orphan girl, now grown to a young woman (Ellen Drew). He soon sets himself up as the "Baron of Arizona,'" with Ellen as his "Baroness," and lays claim to Arizona. The government, unable to disprove his claim, offers him $25,000,000 as a settlement, but he rejects the offer and proceeds with plans to build an empire, infuriating the settlers who had established their homes in the territory. The irate settlers attempt to lynch him, but he succeeds in talking them out of it. Meanwhile Reed Hadley, a government expert, establishes proof that Prices claim was based on forgeries. He confronts Price with this evidence and compels him to confess the fraud. Sentenced to six years in prison, Price serves his term and, upon his release, finds Ellen waiting for him. It was produced by Carl K. Hittleman and directed by Samuel Fuller, who wrote the original screen play. Suitable for the family. "Three Little Words" with Fred Astaire, Red Skelton, Vera-EIlen and Arlene Dahl (MGM, August, time, 102 min.) A thoroughly entertaining Technicolor musical, based on the lives and songs of Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby, the famous songwriting team. If the reception given the picture by a New York neighborhood audience at a preview is any criterion, it should prove to be one of the season's outstanding box-office attractions. The story itself is simple, but it is bright, gay and heartwarming, and is peppered with musical interludes that are highly enjoyable as well as nostalgic, for all the songs were favorite hit tunes in the 1920's. The melodious music, combined with the nimble-footed dancing of Fred Astaire and VeraEllen, and the clowning of Red Skelton, makes for sure-fire entertainment that will please and relax all types of picture-goers. Skelton, as Harry Ruby, is cast in a role that is more subdued than is usual for him, but he is very good in the part, as is Astaire, as Bert Kalmar. Vera-EIlen and Arlene Dahl are charming as the girls with whom the songwriters fall in love, and Keenan Wynn is amusing in a minor part as the team's manager. The color photography is fine, and the production values are up to the usual lavish MGM standard: — As a vaudeville song-and-dance team, Astaire and Vera-EIlen do well, but he does not respond to the love she feels for him and concerns himself mainly with magic — his hobby. While trying out a magic act alone under another name, Astaire meets Skelton, a stagehand and aspiring songwriter, whose hobby was baseball. Skelton bungles the magic props so badly that he ruins the act and puts an end to Astaire's career as a professional magician. Astaire goes back to dancing with Vera-EIlen, but he injures his knee and is unable to dance for a year. Vera-EIlen, hoping that Astaire would take this opportunity to marry her, is disappointed when he turns his attentions to songwriting and teams up with Skelton; she arranges to continue her vaudeville career alone. Astaire and Skelton become a promising songwriting team, but with Vera-EIlen away Astaire finds a void in his life. Skelton, aware of the reason for his partner's unhappiness, intervenes, and before long Astaire and VeraEIlen are married. She retires from the stage and devotes herself to keeping Astaire and Skelton from quarrelling because of their respective hobbies. Meanwhile Skelton falls in love with Arlene, a young actress, and marries her. Both men become highly successful writing words and music for Broadway shows and moving pictures, but a split occurs between them over a minor misunderstanding. Neither one is happy without the other, but each is too stubborn to admit it. Their wives, however, are instrumental in bringing them together again for the happy ending. It was produced by Jack Cummings and directed by Richard Thorpe from a screen play by George Wells. The cast includes Gale Robbins, Gloria de Haven, Phil Regan and many others. Fine for the entire family. SOUND ADVICE FROM NEW ENGLAND ALLIED A recent bulletin of New England Allied had this to say on the subject of film rentals : "From where we sit this is the time right now to get your film rentals cut down to a level that will give you a profit. This may sound foolish to many of our exhibitors; but frankly, we are aware of many situations that have gotten little or no relief since the beginning of the Decline and Fall of Crosses. "As we have cited before, if your gross is off 22%, it is not asking too much to expect your film rental to be decreased a li\e amount percentage-wise. For example, if your gross was $600 per week and your rental for film 25% of the gross, your rental was $1 50 per week. Now your gross is off 22% of $600 or $132 leaving you a new gross of $468 per week. Likewise your $150 per week film costs should be slashed 22% or $33, leaving a new film cost of $117 per week. Checking this we find that your 25% film rental is being maintained. "Don't think for one minute that any distributor representative is going to 'cotton' to your logic; but nevertheless, you are being logical and if you don't fight for this, you pay and pay as long as you arc able. "Take the bull by the horns and don't let your film rental become a matter of your existence, make it an equitable payment so that you can live with it."