Hollywood Spectator (Apr-May 1939)

A big share of whatever satisfaction the picture will give will be due to the fine musical score by Victor Young and its meritorious recording by Soundmen Gene Merritt and Don Johnson. Technically a wholly creditable job. but it cannot be recommended as popular entertainment. Not for children and I can see nothing in it for study groups. Gets it motivation from a drunken debauch and I never can see merit in drunkenness as a motivating factor in screen entertainment . Damon Runyon Story Is Highly Original JOE AND ETHEL TURP CALL ON THE PRESIDENT Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Producer Edgar Selwyn Director Robert B. Sinclair Screen play Melville Baker Based on a story by Damon Runyon Musical score Edward Ward, David Snell Art director Cedric Gibbons Director of photography Leonard Smith, A.S.C. Film editor Gene Ruggiero Cast: Ann Sothern, Lewis Stone, Walter Brennan, William Gargan, Marsha Hunt, Tom Neal, James Bush, Don Costello, Muriel Hutch ison. Jack Norton, Aldrich Bowker, Frederick Burton, A1 Shean, Robei-t Emmett O'Connor, Cliff Clark, Russell Hicks, Paul Everton, Charles Trowbridge. Reviewed by Bert Harlen N ENT ER I AINING show results from the visit of Joe and Ethel Turp to the White House. The Damon Runyon piece, adopted to the screen by Melville Baker, is certainly a unique admixture of elements. It is at once a portrait of a slice of Americana and a sly commentary on national and international affairs, keeps two stories going at the same time, and presents strong contrasts in humor and poignancy. Whatever else may be said about Joe and Ethel Turp Call On the President, the film must be commended for high originality. That the Turps manage to see the president with such facility, having appealed to his sense of humor, may seem a trifle far-fetched in retrospect, but it is made to seem plausible enough during the story’s unreeling. Of course, the naive Turps need not have visited the President at all: the Postmaster General would have done just as well. It all makes a good yarn, though, and the piece somehow does not invite dissection. Their Motive Worthy <| J he urgency of the couple’s trip to Washington is created by the predicament into which their mailman has got himself, having been discharged and arrested for destroying a special delivery letter. There are extenuating circumstances, though, plead the Turps before the President, and to make the case fully known to His Honor, they start at the beginning, when Jim the mailman was a young fellow in love with a girl another fellow got. Their narration is embodied in filmic form, sometimes with their own voices accompanying the action, sometimes with the characters from the past taking over. It is a tale of much sentiment, of a love that endures into old age and leads the mailman to compose and deliver letters purported to be from the woman’s son, really a worthless fellow, in order that the old lady, an invalid, will be made happy. Some of the Turps' own tribulations are interwoven with the narration, an amusing episode being that in which an entertainer in pajamas is discovered in Joe’s bedroom, though he s the innocent victim of circumstance, protests Joe. Now and then incidents of the presidential interview are interpolated. Brennan Again Is Outstanding <1 Certainly the Turps are an amusing pair. One wonders, though, if a more effective film would not have resulted if their mannerisms and antics were not given such a highlighting, if their amusing aspect did not contrast so widely with the essentially pathetic tone of the story related in flash-back. After all. there is also an aspect of pathos to the awkwardly groping Turps, as there is to their many counterparts: indeed, as there is, in some degree, to all of us. Ann Sothern and William Gargan are ideally cast for the pair, manage the Brooklyn lingo and mannerisms in a very comical way. The outstanding performance, though, is that of Walter Brennan, who makes an extraordinary transition from youth to old age, and invests a part which might have been a trifle maudlin with often moving humanness. She Surprises Us Marsha Hunt is a complete surprise as the girl of his heart, aging into a sweet old lady with admirable profificiency. It is inherently admirable characterization, and if dat ol’ debil camera sometimes partly unmasks her youth, it is because the old boy is a relentlessly prying fellow and extremely hard to fool. Wisely, no attempt is made to duplicate the President. Lewis Stone creates a president of his own, a representative high type of American, possessed of a strong sense of humor. Direction by Robert Sinclair is capable throughout. Cedric Gibbons and his associates have given us an attractive White House interior and a picturesque Brooklyn. Photography and the musical score are of good calibre. A picture of unusual invention, in which Damon Runyon's characters. Joe and Ethel Turp, call on the President. There is a good bit of humor in it and some successful pathos too. Dt ocalist Breen Depicts A Latin ESCAPE TO PARADISE, RKO Associate producer Barney Briskin Director E-Ie C. Kenton Screen play Weldon Melick Original story Ian Hunter, Herbert C. Lewis Musical director Victor Young Songs: "Tra-La-La" and "Rhythm of the Rio," by Nilo Menendez, Edward Cherkose. Director of photography Charles Schoenbaum Art director Lewis J. Rachmil Film editor Arthur Hilton Cast: Bobby Breen, Kent Taylor, Marla Shelton, Joyce Compton, Pedro de Cordoba, Robert O. Davis, Rosina Galli, Frank Yaconelli, Anna Demetrio. Reviewed by Bert Harlen LL right as a programer. No great care has gone into the making of the new Bobby Breen offering, there are some rough edges hanging out in nearly all phases of production. The story, however, if rather obviously contrived in places and possessed of a few slow spots, is entertaining in a light way, bolstered by frequent interludes of song. A South American country is the locale, where a young American tourist is inveigled by circumstance into buying a considerable quantity of mate, a South American tea, having presented himself as a New York dealer in order to have an excuse for meeting the planter’s comely daughter. The American’s guide, Bobby Breen, an imaginative lad, spreads the word around that the visitor is intent on buying up all the mate in the district, with the result that the fellow becomes a feted hero. Spanish Language Freely Used •I The lovers seem smitten by the authors rather than by Dan Cupid, and the circumstances of the American’s becoming a local hero seem a little forced, but the plot suffices for a musical production. Portions are fairly amusing, and the piece affords numerous opportunities for interjecting song. One whole scene is done in Spanish, and Bobby does considerable singing in the language, factors which should be assets for South American bookings, as will a ringing address by the American in which he advocates a greater unity and more extensive trade relations between the Americas. Bobby assumes a Spanish dialect in a natural and humorous way. He does well in the part, stands out despite that the plot actually centers about others. The preview audience seemed to go for the boy’s falsetto and heavy-of-vibrato singing. My own reaction is that he is getting to be a good sized lad now and could begin to cut down on the “schmalz.” His singing of one number in straight English, incidentally, quite abandoning the dialect, seemed rather PAGE EIGHT HOLLYWOOD SPECTATOR