Hollywood Spectator (1931)

July 18, 1931 21 ander Engel and Alfred Grunwald, who wrote the play Dancing Partner. Next in line are Frederic Hatton and Fanny Hatton, who obligingly put the thing in English. The rear guard is composed of Hans Kraly, Richard Schayer and Claudine West, who adapted it to the screen and revamped the dialogue. With such a battery of literateurs one might expect something better. Jack Conway directed, and C. Aubrey Smith did the typical British lord rather well. Charlotte Granville was the conventional old lady gone slightly modern. M-G-M should really do something about such affairs. Royal Bust ▼ ▼ COMMAND PERFORMANCE has everything that has gone into pictures of royalty for the last twenty years. Someone who is fairly well posted tells me that the backers of Tiffany are losing much cash each year, and if there are many more such tawdry affairs as Command Performance, their red ink bill is going to mount higher. The show might have been saved if Producer Samuel Zierler and Director Walter Lang, together with James Cruze, had looked over the script with an eye to plausibility. It is, of course, another adapted play, the original having been written by C. Stafford Dickens. It is over-acted and over-serious. It might have made good slapstick, or with cleverer lines, fair satire. But as a drama it is exceedingly flat. ▼ ▼ Neil Hamilton plays the dual role of a prince and a young actor who, enmeshed in political intrigue, is forced to woo Princess Una Merkel in order that the glorious nation of Serblandt may be saved from war. I think Hamilton plays the part as well as could be expected, but the ancient devices of the court play hamper his style. Miss Merkel was a disappointment. I haven’t seen her other pictures, but I have noticed considerable favorable comment on her ability. Perhaps I should reserve judgment in view of the sorry nature of her vehicle. Her voice is much too adolescent in Command Performance and the air of innocence which she exudes is a bit alarming. Also I wish the photographers would watch her close-ups in the future. I hope that so long as I live I never again witness the intrigues of two mythical kingdoms. But if someone should come along with a story set in the courts of Berlin or Vienna preceding or during the war, and if the historical figures should be authentically presented along with the fictional, I think I would swoon for joy. In other words, I want something that I can believe, particularly if it is to be treated as seriously as Command Performance. Inconsistency ▼ ▼ As I glance back over these reviews, I am impressed by the fact that I am not quite consistent. For example I speak more favorably of I Take This Woman, Smart Money and Indiscreet than of Rebound. And Confessions of a CoEd, while better than I Take This Woman, is not spoken of as highly as the latter. But I have acquired a habit of accepting the viewpoint of a creator before passing judgment on his creation. I can not criticize a watermelon because it is not a cantaloupe, however much I may adore cantaloupes. I must judge watermelon as watermelon. If a picture is pretentious and assumes to deal seriously with any given topic, I attend it in the expectation of seeing its pretentiousness vindicated and its seriousness sincere. If it achieves only an ordinary success, I am inclined to be less generous with it than with a picture that claims only to be an ordinary hour and a half of average entertainment. If I were to fall into the fatal error of comparison, I would probably start my rating something like this: Rebound, Indiscreet, Smart Money, and so on down the line. But this I can not do for the present. I shall accept ordinary performances and comment upon them as ordinary performances, expecting nothing unusual from them. But when a supersuper-super comes along, I shall expect to be super-thrilled, and will be disappointed if I am not. As a novice, utterly unfamiliar with the making of pictures, I may be wrong in my attitude, but at least I shall be sincere. ▼ ▼ ▼ Hollywood's Lost Enthusiasm ( Continued from Page H) They can’t laugh off this new device for making home-life more horrible. When it gets going, as get going it will, it is certain to add immeasurably to the hysterical bewilderment of this delighful machine age. The Eternal Heavy ▼ ▼ As A naive tourist through Hollywood and environs, I always keep my eyes open for glimpses of the stars. (By the way — I have not yet seen Garbo, and have just about abandoned hope.) One mighty thrill has been vouchsafed me. While dining at the Ambassador, I was permitted to watch Erich von Stroheim in the act of making an entrance. The sight of this ominous, straight-spined Teuton, swinging a stout walking stick as he strode to his table, reminded me that Hollywood is actually a fountain-head of romance and glamor. Von Stroheim has presumably been discredited, rejected, beaten; but he doesn’t seem to have lost one atom of the magnificent egotism which has created masterpieces on the screen. I don’t know just why it is that he always carries a heavy cane. Perhaps it’s on the chance that he might encounter Louis B. Mayer. Success Story ▼ ▼ Also in the last issue of the Hollywood Spectator was an article on the subject of Lois Moran, in which it was complained that this lovely and able actress was not receiving the recognition that she deserved in Hollywood. Shortly before the publication of that issue, Miss Moran’s contract with Fox was terminated and she was about to return to the New York stage. But the day after the Spectator appeared, with its eloquent protest, M-G-M sent for Miss Moran and engaged her to play the lead with John Gilbert in West of Broadway. Which just goes to prove the truth of a statement that has been made in these columns on previous occasions: The shortest and surest road to fame and fortune is through an advertisement in the Hollywood Spectator! If you can’t pay for the space with money, send around a few ears of green corn, some old copies of the National Geographic Magazine, or even your last year’s Rolls-Royce. ▼ T ▼ Coming ’Round (Kann in M. P. Daily ) Pantomime will always have its appeal and is as distinct a dramatic force as dialogue can be and is when properly written and treated.