Hollywood Spectator (Apr-May 1939)

'film IfluAic and Jlfo tftakete BRUNO DAVID USSHER Peace On Earth CjJ Christmas season and the shocking turn of events abroad lend timeliness to a one-reel MGM cartoon. Peace On Earth, in which Scott Bradley has interwoven various carols in an engaging manner. As in his earlier cartoon scores, Bradley uses musical effects wherever he can in place of mere physical sound, as he has done so cleverly in a short colorcartoon, The Goldfish. How well the industry thinks of Peace On Earth — produced by Hugh Harman, who is in charge of MGM’s cartoon department and writes most of the "action ”— is indicated by the fact that this short will precede Gone With the Wind when that super-spectacle is world-premiered at Atlanta. Locally it will be released next week. I believe cartoons, calling as they do for continuous music background, will have a definite effect on the amount of music in full length pictures. In Peace On Earth the only non-musical sound, apart from dialogue, is the crashing of shells. Once or twice the street carols, when heard in the squirrel home, should sound less loud than outdoors, but that is a small matter. Bradley’s craftsmanship in musical miniatures is exemplified once more. For instance, he uses nothing but a low viola tremolo over deeply beating kettle-drums as the last two men in the world die in battle. As they sink down even the violas cease and finally even the drums merge into a silence that grows tense, although it lasts but ten seconds. No need to mention the fine use of English horn, celeste, trumpet and strings. The various carols can be easily recognized. None of Bradley’s one-reel scores exceels 425-450 measures, according to the tempo. But they embody an amount of feeling and skill to warrant giving him screen credit. What would a cartoon be without music ? * * * Thanks to Two Stones •J This is to give thanks to two "stones," Producer Director Andrew Stone for his newest musical, The Great Victor Herbert, and to the music department chief, Louis Lipstone, for watching over so finely-balanced, wellsounding a recording. It is one of the best from Paramount. I am grateful to Producer Stone for his continued faith in "musicals" of an order in which mar, ried people quarrel about something else than a pair of glamor Tegs belonging to a third party. I see that some of the Los Angeles reviewers think the plot — which I will not tell — -a little familiar. What of it? Life is that way. in Hollywood of all places, where congenial men and women agree to separate because of career reasons. The picture is staged most faithfully with due regard for all the mohair-covered tastes and horsehair upholstered manners of the better middle-class. The now historic ugliness of fashion and broad-tracked emotions of that time are well preserved visually and musically. It would have been tempting to make Herbert’s music a little spicier than it is, in keeping with present jitterizations, but the two "corner 'stones' ” of the production rested firmly in their faith in the original. Many Melodies t| Some thirty of Herbert's finest melodies are embodied in a score accompanied by the following credits in addition to Lipstone’s name: music supervisor, Philip Boutelje: scorer. Arthur Lange: vocal arrangements, Max Terr: dance numbers, Leroy Prinz: orchestral conductor, Arthur Kay. There is a great deal of singing, almost too much singing in a picture of medium length. One is particularly glad to hear again Allan Jones, who has done so well for MGM and for whom that studio did less well by not finding proper assignments. Paramount introduces two new women singers, Mary Martin, a really fine artist vocally, possessing a lovely mezzo soprano, and young Susanna Foster, heralded becausp of her high notes. Singing in general could have been emotionally more alive. I like light moods to be exhilarating, with a little more abandon of expression. Allan Jones is still the best tenor on the screen. His voice sounded well, his tones darker of timbre than usual, which may have been the result of observant sound engineering, whereby his and the Martin voice blended effectively. Those who like altitudinous tones will applaud Susanna Foster, shild soprano of very fine means, which, I hope, she retains. She is a "find," no doubt, but she herself can find yet better enunciation. It is an all-Herbert score and the Herbert fans will glory in it, even though in his buxom days the popular Irish-American lord of melodies was not quite so solemn a personage as exemplified here. A great picture for Herbert fans. * * :}c Hurrah for Destry <1 And hurrah for horse opera, as the Westerns are called sometimes in goodnatured spirit of mockery. Universal's Destry Rides Again is full of the most sage-brush-scented tunes and songy tinkle of the range heard since Wanger's Stage Coach. It speaks irresistibly to my fugue-infested ears. Frank Skinner has not only chosen the right type of music for this fun-and-gun crowded saga of the raucously living prairie metropolis of Bottleneck: he has managed to make it into something as essentially atmospheric as the settings themselves. George Marshall, who directed the picture, evidently let him have his way, and Music Director Charles Previn succeeded in balancing the roaring and whooping of vociferous Bottleneckcrs (which is what their prototypes must have been) with the music. The faint banjo strumming coming from the saloon downstairs while a desperate card game is being played for a man’s ranch upstairs, is quite telling. And there is the tough singing of that brazen Jezebel of Bottleneck, none other than Marlene Dietrich. If one recalls her velvety, purring songs in The Blue Angel, then one will award her a prize for vocal realism now that she waves her frontier-parched voice with a broad glare like a red and coarse-cottoned bandana. At first I thought she sounded a bit too "torchy" and modern of tone in a picture so evidently of a period when Greeley (or was it Dana?) advised young men to go west. She sings three songs: Little Joe the Wrangler, The Boys In the Back Room and You've Got I hat Look, quite of the old ballad type, especially the first two. Frank Loesser wrote the lyrics and Felix Hollaender. he of the kid-gloved, patent-leathered society picture, scores the music. 1 hey knocked the spots off ’em with their team work, just as Destry when he chose to shoot. ijc Enter: La Massey <]| Operating on the plausible principle that nothing succeeds like success. Hollywood is opening its doors wide to singers, so-called "musicals,” as screen-operettas are called, finding new vogues with the men in charge of production policies. This renewed trend in favor of singing stars may be attributed to MGM’s consistent policy in that direction. RKO and 20th Century-Fox have fairly steadily kept up the race for musical comedy honors on the screen. MGM is about to release Balalaika, featuring Ilona Massey as the female lead for vocal laurels on the Culver City lot. I have pinned my faith on her since she sang something not important in the super-terrific Rosalie of lamentable colossality. I am preening myself since being told that Ernest Lubitsch considers La Massey (which is not the real name of the Hungarian artist) , "the best, biggest and most vivid singing-acting talent in Hollywood." And Lubitsch should know. Indeed, my informant DECEMBER 9, 1939 PAGE ELEVEN