Hollywood Spectator (1931)

June 20, 1931 19 and Maxwell Anderson.” But I doubt seriously if the Messrs. Anderson and Stallings would recognize them. V V ▼ Slapsticky STEPPING OUT. Metro has taken an old Elmer Harris play with some fairly attractive lines and bolstered what should have been a two-reel picture into a sevenreel one. But for all that, this critic of manners, customs and pictures must rate it entertainment which really entei'tains. Not that anyone who knows me wouldn’t know why. That name Charlotte Greenwood alone would do the trick. But Leila Hyams is in it too. So is Reginald Denny. So I was thrice thrilled where only one thrill should have been. The story is one of those concoctions which move in locale according to the movie mood of the moment. This time they’ve centered it in Hollywood and Agua Caliente. There’s nothing like having atmosphere you’re familiar with. I’m really at a loss to tell you about it. It’s like trying to describe a Mack Sennett comedy. You all know to begin with that in a picture in which Charlotte appears there will be a predominance of funny business done with her long arms and legs. I don’t seem to remember that she suddenly steps over any chandeliers, but I do remember a lot of business in which Cliff Edwards tries to get her onto a chair or out oi a bathtub, or into one, or something. And there was one never-to-be-forgotten scene in which Harry Stubbs rides her piggy-back around a bathing pool. That was really a little too much. I couldn’t erase it after I got out of the show, and I don’t want to see it again. ▼ ▼ Then there are the usual mixups in which the wives come upon the husbands “at play” and the usual alibis to explain what the play was all about. Then the wives get some boy friends and the little circle of intrigue goes on. I can’t remember exactly where it ended. Or who got who. There was a vampish person named Lillian Bond who showed some signs of knowing what a lady with screen aspirations should do before a camera; and Merna Kennedy was there, too, looking as lovely as a young girl should look — but I mustn’t forget that I am a reviewer and not Stella, the StarGazer, so there will be no more of that. It wouldn’t be right to tell you to see this, because there is nothing there for you to see. But I can tell you that it made me laugh for an hour, and if you want to be put in a class with me, you can go and laugh, too. Or you can be haughty and stay home. I don’t care. T ▼ ▼ Yet Again U~7~\ ADDY LONG LEGS. Of course you saw it on the ! J stage. And of course you saw Mary Pickford in it. ^ So you were pretty fed up on the story by the time this Janet Gaynor version came around. And so had I and so was I. But I did relish seeing the little Gaynor in something she could do again. There are spots in this reminiscent of Seventh Heaven — let no one accuse me of comparing it to that former masterpiece! — spots in which the drab little flunkey in the “home” becomes very wistful and very appealing indeed. And even some of the later business at the college, silly, inconsequential and unlikely though it may be, showed that the Gaynor star has not altogether dimmed. But I must confess at once that Miss Gaynor was not the whole picture for me. Una Merkel and John Arledge gave me a greater kick than anyone else in it. I remember this Arledge, if I am not mistaken, from the local production of Up Pops the Devil. I commented on his work then. I com ment on it again. He is not only a fresh type, he is a vivacious and versatile actor into the bargain. And I can think of nothing better Fox could do than search around in its morgue for a story in which he and the Merkel person may be allowed again to speak their adenoidal language. I suppose some pronunciamento on the general ability of a picture of this sort to take in money at the box-office is necessary. It certainly should go well in the sticks, and I can well imagine even the larger city audiences paying for it for a few days, but its fate at the Carthay Circle here and its fate in New York indicate that it is not the best thing that has been made in Hollywood. That it is, however, a sincere and nicely balanced piece of 1929 movie hokum, I freely admit. ▼ ▼ V Russian rRANSPORT OF FIRE. This, the latest Soviet cinema offering to be given at the Filmarte is the most Americanized story to come from their studios in some time. I am not aware whether it is a latter day production, or whether it was made in the early days of the cinema in Russia, so I am unable to tell what this emulation of our story method and star ballyhooing may indicate. Ksenia Klyaro is a Slavic Lya de Putti and Fedor Slavski a sort of Conrad Nagel. As if this exploiting of personalities were not enough, there is the rough semblance of a story. A gang of revolutionists (what became of that rich word, nihilists?) is making and hiding firearms unbeknownst to the gendarmerie, but a traitor in their midst keeps giving the thing into the hands of the authorities. Then the traitor is caught and killed by the handsome hero, and the troops look in vain for the plotters. There may have been more to the story than that. I got that much by a cross examination of other witnesses who went with me, for during at least three-quarters of its running I was asleep. Waking to the noise of the organ once or twice, I caught some pretty camera work. A shot of men on a bridge ; some interesting compositions weaved from man and snow and railroad yards; some shots of wires; a shot along the barrel of a gun that is just about to shoot a man — these and a few more. Otherwise it seemed to me one of the least interesting of the Soviet productions to come to the coast. But, as one of my party said when we came out: “Bad as it was, how far it excels what we are doing!” So there you are. or your convenience HOLLYWOOD SPECTATOR 6362 Hollywood Boulevard Hollywood, Calif. Please send me the Hollywood Spectator for I year, for which I enclose $3.50 (Foreign $4.50). Name Address