Hollywood Spectator (1931)

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9 August 1, 1931 A Free Soul SURELY THOSE who make our motion pictures will profit by the lesson that A Free Soul can teach them. Undoubtedly the story was selected because it had a heroine who keeps some of her night-clothes in the apartment of a gangster whom she visits regularly during several months, and when she leans back bewitchingly as her arms reach for her lover, we get an eyeful of leg bare to the hip. If all this is not in Adela Rogers St. Johns’ story, it at least is in the picture, and that is the kind of heroine we have. Metro has made a lot of money showing Norma Shearer in such parts — a nice, refined girl being exploited in nasty roles solely because they were nasty. I incurred the violent wrath of the studio heads because I called Strangers May Kiss what it is, a filthy picture which presented prostitution for its own sake and without the usual alibi that the story teaches a moral lesson. In the hope that its success at the box-office would be duplicated by A Free Soul, the latter story was selected for its smut content. But it happened that Clarence Brown directed and that in its cast are Lionel Barrymore, Leslie Howard and Clark Gable, and the picture emerges as a magnificent example of the talkie art, perhaps the best talkie we have had, and there is nothing in it to offend the most sensitive person who views it. It is the greatest acting talkie that Metro has turned out, and it is scoring a success, not on account of the loose morals it exploits, but in spite of them. Again we have a thoroughly immoral heroine, but for the first time we have a director who refuses to allow the immoral element to mar the perfection of his artistic creation. He makes the immorality an incident, and builds his picture with magnificent acting and brilliant direction until it becomes an artistic triumph. ▼ ▼ The LESSON the picture should teach the industry is that the public always may be counted on to respond to anything fine in its screen entertainment. Throughout the existence of the Spectator I have pleaded the cause of distinctive characterizations and have urged producers to entrust principal roles to veteran artists who know how to act. But, maintained the producers, the public wants youth on the screen, and to such an extent was this belief allowed to govern production, the screen figured but little as an acting art and became merely a pictorial record of the poses of youthful people. This was carried so far that it contributed greatly to the falling off in theatre attendance during the last year of the silent picture. The everlasting exploitation of youth had the inevitable effect of standardizing stories, and the public grew tired of what it was getting. Free Soul is a great picture, first, because it was given great direction by Clarence Brown, and, second, because of the performance given by Lionel Barrymore, the finest ever seen on the screen. I place the direction first because unless Brown had displayed a fine sense of story values, unless he had had a sympathetic understanding of the character played by Barrymore, such a performance would not have been possible. The performance is not notable merely as a piece of acting. It is notable as a finely drawn characterization, perfect in itself and perfect as a part of the whole. In that superb scene between Barrymore and Norma Shearer in which the daughter exacts from her father a promise never to take another drink, the work of Barrymore is dazzling. The craving for rum and the love for his daughter are at war with one another, and in every word he utters, every gesture he makes, Barrymore registers what a struggle it is, until, when daughter-love wins, we know full well that eventually the result will be reversed. The death scene in the court-room is more spectacular and Barrymore pours himself into it until it becomes terrific in its revelation of a tortured and repentant mind, but to me it does not equal for sheer brilliancy the more quiet encounter between father and daughter. ▼ v Moving UNOBTRUSIVELY through the picture in a part that is almost incidental, is Leslie Howard, and I will consider myself fortunate if ever I see on the screen a performance that is a more brilliant exhibition of acting than Howard gives us. Assigning Clark Gable the role of a gangster chief whom Norma quite reasonably might love was another exhibition of wise casting. There is a strong contrast between the two men who enter her life — Howard, quiet, reserved, always the gentleman; and Gable, loud, dominating and always the bully — physical and mental contrasts, each of which lends strength to the other. James Gleason has a part unlike most of those I have seen him play, and for the first time there seemed to be something missing in his performance. I assume that a star of the box-office importance of Norma Shearer is consulted in the selection of her supporting cast. If the assumption be correct, we must respect Norma for the bravery she displays. She put herself in a difficult position when she elected to take care of herself in such company. The story really is about the father, and Barrymore’s superb acting makes his theft of the picture complete, but Norma will not disappoint her fans, among whom I am numbered. In a few places in this picture her gestures are a bit extravagant, but her performance as a whole is excellent. Never the Twain Shall Meet HERE is another picture whose reception by the public proves that if the film industry persists in trusting its chances of a return of prosperity to outright talkies, it never will be prosperous again. The Peter B. Kyne story made into a talkie by Metro, directed by W. S. Van Dyke and entrusting its main characterization to that superb actor, Leslie Howard, succeeds in being one of the finest bits of screen entertainment of the sort that has been offered us this season, and still it is making scarcely a ripple in box-offices. Of course producers, to justify the making of talkies, will argue that the picture has no established box-office names in the cast, but in the silent days an offering with as many excellent qualities would have been an outstanding success that would have CREATOR OF DISTINCTIVE D E S I G N S FORREST SEABURY'S De Luxe Awning Company 6404 Yucca Street, at Cahuenga Hollywood, California GR 4440 AWNINGS OF EVERY DESCRIPTION