Hollywood Spectator (1936)

Hollywood Spectator Page Nine Produced by Sol Lesser O'MALLEY OF THE MOUNTED, produced by Sol Lesser tor Twentieth Century-Fox release. Directed by David Howard; from the story by William S. Hart; screen play by Dan Jarrett, Frank Howard Clark; production manager, Edward Gross; photography, Frank B. Good, A.S.C.; art direction, Lewis J. Rachmil; assistant director, George Sherman; film editor, Arthur Hilton; sound, Hal Bumbaugh; technical advisor, Dave Mason. Cast: George O'Brien, Irene Ware, Stanley Fields, James Bush, Victor Potel, Reginald Barlow, Dick Cramer, Tom London, Charles King, Olin Francis, Crauford Kent. Bill Hart’s story had enough meat in it to give Sol Lesser a chance to turn out a lively outdoor drama that will prove satisfactory to the formidable army of George O’Brien fans, one of whom I happen to be myself. George stands for the clean, clear-thinking, healthy young Americans I like to see on the screen, and all his pictures take us away from city turmoil and lead us through the well ventilated art galleries in which Nature displays its sculptures and its great landscapes which use the horizon as a frame. The cloying hand of the microphone has been laid less roughly on the outdoor pictures than on any others; scenery is an important part of them and only the camera can bring it to us. In O'Malley of the Mounted there is a great deal of the wide outdoors, admirably photographed by Frank B. Good. The story is one of the smart fellows of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police being baffled by a motley gang of our outlaw fellows, led by Stanley Fields, until George, one of the Mounted, is given the chore of wiping them out. He does, and in the process accumulates ser¬ geant’s stripes and a bride in the person of Irene Ware. * * * Right up to the final fade-out Sol Lesser deludes us into thinking we are viewing a motion picture, and then, by neglecting to attach to it the identifying tag of a huge close-up of a kiss, makes us wonder just what the thing really is. George and Irene ride on a buckboard into the fade-out and toward a place to be married, and never once have we seen them enjoying even the degree of pas¬ sion that can be engendered by holding hands. Someone should speak to Sol about his recklessness in thus shatter¬ ing one of the sacred traditions of Hollywood screen productions. The story is told expertly. In writing the screen play Dan Jarrett and Frank Howard Clark have ignored nonessentials. Two men break jail. In their cell a file is dis¬ played. There is a scene in which one of the men tells his sister to have horses ready, and next comes a dissolve to the girl with the horses and the men coming to her through the woods. The fact of the escape is all that matters and no footage is wasted on the details of it. The same treatment throughout causes the story to move along briskly. David Howard’s direction is excellent except in spots where the dialogue is too loud. O’Brien and Fields pull up their horses on the outskirts of a town in which O’Brien, to gain the confidence of the outlaws, is about to stage a hold-up. It is a quiet night, and the two dis¬ cuss the details of the raid in tones loud enough to be heard by anyone within a range of half a mile. The loud¬ ness itself is not the chief weakness of the scene. All the drama of it is destroyed by the casual manner of their conversation. If they had conversed in whispers, the scene would have been much more impressive. All the performances are satisfactory. O’Brien is his usual vibrant self, alive to both the dramatic and comedy values of his scenes. Fields gives a remarkably efficient performance. I saw him once in a sympathetic role and have been wondering ever since why producers fail to real¬ ize his possibilities. James Bush is a talented young actor who gives a good account of himself, and Victor Potel also scores in a comedy role. Irene Ware is entirely ac¬ ceptable in her contribution to the love interest. Bob Bobs Up Again PETTICOAT FEVER, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Directed by George Fitzmaurice; screen play by Harold Goldman; from the play by Mark Reed; produced by Frank Davis; musical score by Dr. William Axt; recording director, Douglas Shearer; art director, Cedric Gib¬ bons; associates, Elmer Sheeley, Edwin B. Willis; wardrobe by Dolly Tree; photographed by Ernest Haller, A.S.C.; film editor, Fredrick Y. Smith; assistant director, Sandy Roth. Cast: Robert Montgomery, Myrna Loy, Reginald Owen, Otto Yamaoka, George Hassell, For¬ rester Harvey, Irving Bacon, Bo Ching, Iris Yamaoka. WE have this picture to thank for bringing Bob Montgomery back to us. It seems years since I have seen him on the screen. I have my own list of favorite picture performers and Bob is up near the top. I am Scotch enough to want more than critical fodder when I view a picture. I want to be entertained, to have a good time, and Bob never fails me. In Petticoat Fever he is excellent. He is one actor who always can make impudence entertaining. George Fitzmaurice performs the miracle of keeping all his characters on one small, unattractive set for al¬ most the entire length of the picture and never failing to hold the interest of the audience in the progress of the story. Harold Goldman’s screen play sticks closely to the play, but the direction of Fitzmaurice makes the pic¬ ture a more lively piece of entertainment than the play managed to be. When one sees how intimate the camera can make a play, how more real a stage story becomes when the camera takes the audience into the immediate presence of the players, he realizes why the stage is lan¬ guishing except on Broadway, its last stand against the onslaught of the potent motion picture camera. Petticoat Fever is just another demonstration of the superiority of the screen as a medium for the presentation of stage plays. I still think the screen would get farther by giving us motion pictures again, entertainment in which the spoken word plays second fiddle to the camera, but photographed plays sprinkled through the output of screen offerings always will command an audience. There is not much to say about Petticoat Fever except that it is amusing entertainment, cleverly directed, well acted', graphically produced and competently photograph¬ ed. The whole thing is preserved in ice, the locale being Labrador in the winter. It is an extraordinary produc¬ tion feat. In the few outdoor shots we see miles of ice, great blocks piled up by a surging sea to lose themselves against the far horizon. When we reflect that the whole thing was shot on the Metro lot, we wonder again at the uncanny skill of the unsung heroes of technical staffs who perform such miracles. I do not know how they perform the wonders and I will not permit anyone to