Hollywood Spectator (1936)

Page Eight March 28, 1936 sit in my garden this morning and run over on my mental screen Murder By An Aristocrat, which I saw last night, I discover a few things in it that I do not think should be there. But the thing that matters is that I had no time to discover them last night. When you are watching a buzz saw turn you cannot detect a flaw in one of its teeth, and after the sawing job is done the possible existence of a flaw is unimportant. The trouble with most of the pic¬ tures of the sort is that they give us time to think. This Warner contribution to the cycle is no tightwad. It gives us three corpses. It consists largely of the entire cast chasing up and down stairs in breathless determina¬ tion to locate the source of origin of blood-curdling screams, and three times, by way of an extra dividend, there is a corpse to justify the strenuous exertion. It really is splendid entertainment if your nerves are unshatterable. And if you like to dream, see the picture before going to bed and you will dream about it all night. Until the very end, when Marguerite Churchill, one of the screen’s most attractive and talented girls whom I was pleased to see again, solves the problem by recon¬ structing the crimes, you will not have the slightest sus¬ picion of the identity of the guilty party. I do not know how under the sun Marguerite gained her knowledge of the incidents, but I did not think of that until this morn¬ ing, consequently it did not lessen my enjoyment last night. Frank McDonald deserves great credit for his direc¬ tion. He demonstrates the value of movement to screen entertainment, the wisdom of headlong speed to hold the attention of the audience. He gives us a motion picture, made possible by the exceedingly busy screen play of Luci Ward and Roy Chanslor. And to Louis Hasse for his expert cutting there is due a special award of merit. To give the members of the cast the credit due them would be merely a repetition of the names you will find above. Murder By An Aristocrat is another of the good pro¬ duction jobs being done by Bryan Foy. His contributions to the Warner program must be glad news to exhibitors. Jolson in a Jolly One THE SINGING KID, a First National picture. Directed by Wil¬ liam Keighley; numbers staged by Bobby Connolly; screen play by Warren Duff, Pat C. Flick; story by Robert Lord; music and lyrics by E. Y. Harburg, Harold Arlen; assistant director, Chuck Hansen; supervisor, Robert Lord; photography by George Barnes; film edi¬ tor, Tom Richards; art director, Carl Weyl; gowns by Orry-Kelly; orchestral arrangements by Ray Heindorf; orchestra conducted by Leo F. Forbstein. Cast: Al Jolson, Sybil Jason, Edward Everett Hor¬ ton, Lyle Talbot, Allen Jenkins, Beverly Roberts, Claire Dodd, Jack Durant, Frank Mitchell, Joseph King, Wm. Davidson, Winifred Shaw, The Yacht Club Boys, Cab Calloway and His Band. The brisk pace it maintains, the quick succession of entertaining scenes, lively and tuneful musical num¬ bers, a connected story interesting enough to hold attention, and wide enough in scope to embrace the backstage glitter of New York and the sleepy quiet of rural New England, the best performance Al Jolson has given the screen, clever supporting performances by Edward Everett Horton, Allen Jenkins and others — just some of the things making The Singing Kid one of the best bits of entertainment of the sort I ever saw. It gains strength from what it lacks quite as much as from what it has. It shows us no imposing dance routines with girls’ legs being used to work out mathematical problems, and is not loaded down with the numerous dis¬ tractions which have become standard ingredients of back-stage musicals. The slim story is woven cleverly through the various musical interludes, showing itself just often enough to keep us from forgetting it entirely. The picture starts its lively pace with a quick succes¬ sion of shots showing Jolson in roles that made him fam¬ ous, singing bits from songs which he made famous. It glides into a sequence which ranks among the cleverest contributions to musical pictures. Jolson tries to sing his Mammy song, and the Yacht Club Boys, in the highly entertaining manner in which they do things, implore Him in song not to sing it. Al tries to escape them, but they follow him from the theatre, through street traffic; crowds join in, and finally the whole populace engages in a dance which ends with prostration and collapse of everybody on the pavement. The crowded theatre re¬ warded the sequence with a generous outburst of en¬ thusiastic applause. * * * But that is only one of the numerous features which make the production outstanding. There are too many for enumeration in this review. The Singing Kid, in short, is a picture you should see if you are looking for clean, decent, clever and lively entertainment which does not endeavor to interest you in the working out of do¬ mestic and social problems. The picture was designed to amuse you, and you will find it achieves its purpose. In this picture Al Jolson does not work as hard as has been his habit, and the result is he gives his most impres¬ sive performance he has to his credit on the screen. Of course, he cannot cease being Al Jolson, unquestionably the world’s greatest individual entertainer, but it is the Jolson’s way of doing things that gives the picture its strength. Horton is always capable. In all the hundreds of his performances on the screen I cannot remember one that was not pleasing. Jenkins plays a dumb part effectively. It requires real brains to enact a brainless character so capably. William Davidson and Lyle Talbot also do well. That charming child, Sybil Jason, is running Shirley Temple a good second in capturing the heart of the world. Her appealing performance contributes greatly to the picture. Warner Brothers present to us a real find in the person of Beverly Roberts, an English girl who soon will command a large following. She is admirable in a romantic role. Claire Dodd makes effective her role as Jolson’s unfaithful sweetheart. * * * Robert Lord’s story and the screen play by Warren Duff and Pat C. Hick provide excellent material for William Keighley’s expert direction. It is one of the smoothest bits of direction I have seen recently. A word of praise must go to Tom Richards for the capable man¬ ner in which the film is edited, and to George Barnes for a splendid photographic job. The Singing Kid is just another of the outstanding pictures which Warner Brothers are in the habit of turn¬ ing out. Hal Wallis, the Warner production chief, cer¬ tainly is making a record for notable achievements.