Hollywood Spectator (1931)

s Hollywood Spectator man, and I hereby serve notice on all reviewers that they can’t keep me from viewing any picture in which he appears, no matter how much they roast it. While Nancy earned my admiration by her manner of acting, she certainly did not intrigue me by her appearance. The cameraman must have been mad at her. I was glad to see Alan Hale on the screen again. He is a splendid actor whom producers are neglecting shamefully. Miss Foster, who impressed me with her work in a couple of other pictures, gives an intelligent performance in this one. Alison Skipworth’s performance is weakened somewhat by the fact that it savors too much of the stage. Paramount gave the picture an elaborate and attractive production. I am sorry I reviewed Night Angel so late. If you missed it, I don’t think you can find it now. Clian Still Carries On ONE THING to the credit of The Black Camel is the fact that it does more than any other picture has done to give us a comprehensive impression of the social life and the scenery of Honolulu. After viewing it I feel that I know my Hawaii rather well. William Sistrom, a Fox associate producer, took his company to the islands in search of authentic backgrounds for the story’s action, the result being one of the most attractive productions pictorially that we have had since talkies have confined themselves almost exclusively to the interior of residences in which sophisticated people live and commit indiscretions that produce the complications out of which domestic dramas are built. Instead of sophisticated indiscretions we have in Black Camel two murders with delightful backgrounds, nice, clean murders, the first of which brings to an end an interesting performance by Dorothy Revier, while the second removes from the picture an intriguing rogue who levies blackmail like a gentleman and makes us like him while he does it. I don’t know who he is, but he is a good actor. The story deals with unravelling the mysteries of the two immediate murders and another that occurred three years before Black Camel begins. I found the unravelling interesting and I can’t understand why TAY GARNETT i DIREC ii PATHE 1 :tor i STUDIO Ruth Collier, Inc., Manager the picture is not giving a better account of itself at the boxoffice. It was directed most capably by Hamilton MacFadden and admirably photographed by Joe August and Dan Clark. The cast is an excellent one and all the performances are good. ▼▼ WARNER Oland has his old role as Charlie Chan , and perhaps because the locale is his native heath, he is not quite so obsequious in his characterization as he was before. Oland is a superb actor. A mystery story is tricky screen material. To keep the mystery intact until the end is reached, the characters must do things that mean nothing to the audience until the denouement makes everything clear. In Black Camel the interest is maintained solely by the clever performance contributed by Oland. He forces us to keep our eyes on him and by his art holds the story together even though we don’t know which way it’s heading. The feature of the picture that impresses me most is the evidence it gives that Fox was sincere in its effort to give it an authentic background that in itself has story value. The scenic embellishment of Black Camel alone is worth whatever we must pay to see it. On the debit side, however, we have what perhaps is the silliest “comedy relief” ever inflicted on a pic ture, as well as a romance between Sally Eilers and an agreeable young fellow that has nothing whatever to do with the story . . . And I almost forgot to credit Bela Lugosi with a very worthy performance. Waste and Wisdom TERRY Ramsaye some weeks ago contributed a rather weird editorial to the excellent Motion Picture Herald of which he is editor. In his role of apologist for the film industry he takes up the question of the waste of money, using as a text the Wodehouse incident which received such wide publicity. Ramsaye indirectly defends studio waste by citing examples of expensive mistakes committed by other industries. Here is one of them: “Once a great motor car company had to call in its whole season’s output because of a silly error in construction.” The motor company saw its mistake and corrected it. That was the end of it. It is safe to assume that thereafter it turned out good cars without errors in construction. The film industry has been committing its mistakes over and over again for all the years it has existed. Again Ramsaye says: “The fate of this industry does not rest on its wastes, its mistakes and its failures, even if in periods of stress nervous bankers and excitable executives do make them the subject of their chief concern and most vigorous vociferations in hot weather.” There is evidence here that the heat must have affected Terry also. It would explain the wildness of his assertion that waste does not affect the fate of the industry. If there were nothing the matter with the manner in