Hollywood Spectator (February 29, 1936)

Page Six February 29, 1936 Charles Rosher’s camera does it full justice. I am glad the picture was made before the advent of the color debauch which Hollywood seems destined to indulge in as a result of the showing of Lonesome Pine. Another Goldwyn Triumph THESE THREE, a Samuel Goldwyn production for United Artists release. Original story and screen play by Lillian Hellman; directed by William Wyler; art direction, Richard Day; musical direction, Alfred Newman; photography, Gregg Toland, A.S.C.; costumes, Omar Kiam; film editor, Daniel Mandell; sound recorder, Frank Maher; assistant director, Walter Mayo. Cast: Miriam Hopkins, Merle Oberon, Joel McCrea, Catharine Doucet, Alma Kruger, Bonita Granville, Marcia Mae Jones, Carmencita Johnson, Mary Louise Cooper, Mary Ann Durkin, Margaret Hamilton, Walter Brennan. EMORY fails to bring to my mental screen another Sam Goldwyn picture which for sheer brilliancy of production matches These Three. It must be all of eight or nine years since the SPECTATOR first drew attention to a German youth, a Laemmle relative, who was directing unimportant pictures on the Universal lot. There was something in Willie Wyler’s work which prompted me to write on several occasions that some day he would do things in a big way. He is William Wyler now. He directed These Three, and if there is another director who could have made a better job of it, I do not know his name. Willie’s greatest achievement in handling the Goldwyn production is his direction of two children in his cast, Bonita Granville and Monica Mae Jones. Bonita, in particular, and because her role permits it, fairly astounds the audience with the depth of her performance; but Monica is equally successful in developing all the values of her less prominent role. They are a pair of spectacularly talented youngsters, nevertheless it was great direction that was responsible for the brilliancy of their performances. The These Three story deals with the cruel power of malicious gossip. Lies, not even based on a shred of truth, play havoc with the spiritual and material welfare of Miriam Hopkins, Merle Oberon and Joel McCrea. That is the story. A trifle too much footage is used in its telling. During the showing I uncrossed and recrossed my legs two or three times, and when I do that it is because my interest in the screen is lagging. But in this instance the lagging was of short duration. To those interested in the screen as a medium, These Three will appeal principally by virtue of its excellence as an example of screen craftsmanship. Students of motion picture appreciation will find it a profitable subject for study. It is a talkie, of course, but it leans heavily on the camera as a story-telling aid. The dialogue is businesslike ; it confines itself to telling the story in the fewest possible words, and is delivered without the distracting element of stage declamation. Only the children raise their voices, and they do it only when the hysterical nature of scenes demands it. There are five adult performances which will give an intelligent audience that complete satisfaction which only perfection bestows on its beholder. In the order of their billing the artists are Miriam Hopkins, Merle Oberon, Joel McCrea, Catharine Doucet and Alma Kruger. Margaret Hamilton and Walter Brennan display equal ability in minor parts. And there are several children besides the two I mention who, in the little they have to do, maintain the acting excellence of the production. With uncanny ability the director has woven the various characterizations into an even pattern until it is their very interdependence which gives the performances their individual strength. Merle Oberon heightens the favorable impression she made in Dark Angel. Joel McCrea is coming along with giant strides. Unhampered by the stilting influence of definite technique, his naturalness is unhampered in its expression. No other young actor on the screen displays greater promise of a more brilliant career in pictures. Alma Kruger in a grande dame role gives an interesting performance in her first screen appearance, adapting herself to the new medium without revealing traces of her stage training. The screen play of Lillian Hellman is a flawless piece of talkie writing. Gregg Toland’s photography is an outstanding demonstration of the camera at the peak of its artistic power. All Goldwyn pictures are mounted handsomely and in this one Richard Day’s impressive sets maintain the high Goldwyn standard. These Three is a triumph for William Wyler and establishes his right to consideration as one of the screen’s most able directors. Coloring the Lonesome Pine THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE, Walter Wanger production for Paramount release. directed by Henry Hathaway; screen play by Grover Jones; original by John Fox, Jr.; adaptation by Harvey Thew and Horace McCoy; settings in color designed and executed by Alexander Toluboff; musical direction, Boris Morros; director of photography, Robert C. Bruce; film editor, Robert Bischoff; recorded by Hugo Grenzbach; assistant director, Richard Talmadge; technicolor photography, Howard Greene; technicolor color director, Natalie Kalmus. Cast: Sylvia Sidney, Henry Fonda, Fred MacMurray, Fred Stone, Nigel Bruce, Beulah Bondi, Robert Barrat, Spanky McFarland, Fuzzy Knight, Otto Fries, Samual Hinds, Alan Baxter, Fern Emmett, Richard Carle, Henry Kleinbach, Phillip Barker, Robert Kortman. ECHNICOLOR displays here its supreme achievement. The film opens with some of the most exquisitely beautiful pictures ever to adorn the screen. They were greeted with applause by the preview audience which filled the theatre. Later in the picture some scenes even more beautiful crossed the screen without provoking applause. That about sums up the story of color in feature pictures. The audience’s capacity for absorbing its beauty, for reacting to its esthetic appeal, was satiated before the film had half run its course. Then it became a distraction. I went to The Trail of the Lonesome Pine with an open mind. For years I have been expressing myself as opposed to the use of color except in short subjects. I joined in the applause which greeted the first shots, for no one can deny their beauty. But I came away from the preview more than ever convinced that color photography has no place in feature pictures. The near approach to natural coloring which Technicolor has attained is the very thing that makes its use unwise. The mission of art is to interpret nature, not to reproduce it. On all sides of us nature presents pictures which we scarcely glance at, yet we are willing to reward handsomely the artists who interpret them on canvas. The elements of the medium in which the painter works are his blues, greens, browns, yellows. The elements of motion picture art are photography and moving compositions.