Hollywood Spectator (Apr-May 1939)

to poke its nose into, and it brought to the screen many fine shots. Wide terrain, marching soldiers and artillery movements presented interesting problems in film editing, all of them being solved successfully by Conrad Nervig. Rather a waste of a brilliant young director's genius. Selection of story a psychological blunder. Will not disappoint Berry fans, and all the performances will please. Hardly for children. Tarkington Story Much Modernized SEVENTEEN, Paramount Associate producer Stuart Walker Director Louis King Screen play: Agnes Christine Johnston, Stuart Palmer. Based on the story by Booth Tarkington Based on the play by: Stuart Walker, Hugh Stanislaus Strange, Stanford Mears. Director of photography Victor Milner, ASC Art directors Hans Dreier, Franz Bachelin Editor Arthur Schmidt Sound recording Earl Hayman, Walter Oberst Cast: Jackie Cooper, Betty Field, Otto Kruger, Ann Shoemaker, Norma Nelson, Betty Moran, Thomas Ross, Peter Hayes, Buddy Pepper, Donald Haines, Richard Denning, Jody S. Gilbert, Paul E. Burns, Hal Clements, Edward Earle, Stanley Price, Joey Ray, Snowflake, Hattie Noel. Reviewed by Bert Harlen FRAGRANT with the sweet dreams of puppy love and brisking with the capers of adolescence, Booth Tarkington’s famed Seventeen again comes to the screen. It is a highly modernized version of the story that Paramount presents. The snappy vernacular of yesteryear has been replaced by the snazzy vernacular of today; jitterbugging, roaders, including a snorting jaloppy emblazoned with epigrams, and a night club feature as youth’s diversions. It was a right good tale Tarkington dashed off, one touching on fundamental attitudes and problems of youth — and of parents — and the yarn holds up staunchly for all its alterations and furbelows. Like a good piece of Georgian architecture, it can stand a lot of tampering with. If the present piece seems sometimes just a little cluttered with modernity — and a Hollywood brand of modernity — and if one misses a certain simplicity and homespun quality that lent an engaging spirit to the book, nevertheless Seventeen provides buoyant and interest-sustaining entertainment The picture has considerable nostalgic appeal too; indeed the elders may take to the film more than adolescents, who, even as the characters herein portrayed, often like to imagine themselves as other than they are. The Paramount people are leaving no stone unturned to impress the budding generation with the notion that it is being glorified, however. Sev enteen misses, age 1 7, were brought from 1 7 states to attend the preview and be wined and dined — or maybe only dined. What with the preview taking place on Valentine day and all the youthful flurry and palpitation, it was really a gala occasion. Of Jackie and Willie CJ Most of the familiar incidents of the story are at least represented in Agnes Christine Johnston’s and Stuart Palmer’s screen play — Willie Baxter’s prying and revealing little sister, his borrowing father’s dress suit to impress the flirtatious Lola Pratt from Chicago, and so on. A good deal of action here hinges around Willie's trading his old jaloppy in for a presentable roadster and then trying to raise the money for the pavments. Needless to say, jackie Cooper gives a convincing, an amusing and appealing interpretation of young Baxter. Seemed to me, though, that in the direction some opportunities for humor were overlooked in not emphasizing more the boy’s aspiration to maturity, his assumption of manly and worldly characteristics, which practice is one of the most amusing tendencies of adolescents. In this and in several other directions— for instance, in giving out his money so generously at the night club — Cooper seems a mite too casual. Naturalness and casualness are not just the same things. Characterization implies the assemblage of dominant characteristics. It is a good show Cooper gives, within a certain interpretative range, but it is hardly a departure from other portrayals he has given. Willie Baxter is certainly a character. Betty Field Registers As the streamlined Lola, Betty Field is a very scintillating and beguiling young creature. The new Lola evidently is a spoiled brat, refers to her parents, who had obstructed her elopement, as “obstreperous,” addresses all the young men as “darling,” goes in for too much make-up, including artificial eyelashes. She flaunts too what she considers the last word in vernacular — many a sentence takes an interrogative upswing at the close, with greatly altered, sometimes uncertain meaning, thusly, “Who do you think you are — anyhow?” Miss Field carries off the part capitally, “but definitely.” Louis King’s direction, by and large, is most whimsical and sympathetic. Good performances are gotten from a number of other young people, Norma Nelson, as sister Jane, Betty Moran, Buddy Pepper, Donald Haines and the promising Peter Hayes. Of the adults, Ann Shoemaker gives an understanding performance as Willie’s mother, and Otto Kruger does well as the father. Art direction is discerning, the photography of Victor Milner pleasant. Good editing is contributed by Arthur Schmidt. Associate producer was Stuart Walker, who had a hand in adapting and staging the legitimate stage version some years back. Tarkington' s noted story of adolescence has been given a good many furbelows of modernity , but the present version has human-interest appeal and humor. Youth does not change in fundamental ways, nor do its problems. Elder spectators should like the picture as well as the younger ones, possibly more so, for it has a nostalgic quality. Emphasis is decidedly on humor, however. Contains nothing especially to call to the attention of study groups. Blonde Damsel Is Really A Meanie FREE, BLONDE AND 21, 20th Century-Fox Executive producer Sol M. Wurtzel Director Ricardo Cortez Original screen play Frances Hyland Director of photography George Barnes, ASC Art direction Richard Day, George Dudley Film editor Norman Colbert Musical director Samuel Kaylin Cast: Lynn Bari, Mary Beth Hughes, Joan Davis, Henry Wilcoxon, Robert Lowery, Alan Baxter, Katharine Aldridge, Helen Ericson, Chick Chandler, John Valerie, Elise Knox, Dorothy Dearing, Herbert Rawlinson, Kay Linaker, Thomas Jackson, Richard Lane. Reviewed by Bert Harlen ODELED along the lines of the recent Hotel For Women, this one again lets us in on the gambols of the girls in a New York hostelry for the fair sex. And what a gilded and glamorous life the fair ones lead. Dates to the point of ennui — though largely with sojourning buyers and such — expensive clothes, elegant apartments, all these and more the big city has showered in their laps. Evidently all the young things are eminently successful in one way or another, though two or three are preening their fine feathers in a gilded cage, if you possibly can conceive what I mean. Doubtless many a small-town maiden will decide she is wasting her fragrance on the desert air and entrain for the big city after Free, Blonde and 21 — which takes the crocheted something or other for tawdry titles — has been screening at the local Bijou. Those not so susceptible to cinematic enchantments will find the picture fair entertainment of the popuar sort, cream-puff fare. The spectacle of a crosssection of metropolitan femininity, eager and foot-loose, is diverting; the theme has not been overworked — as yet. Most of the story turns out to hinge around a blonde miss who is certainly a meanie. First she fakes an attempted suicide in an effort to scandalize a married man who has chosen between her and his wife — though the ruse does not work — and then nearly ruins the life of MARCH 1, 1940 PAGE SEVEN