Hollywood Spectator (1937-39)

Hollywood Spectator Page Nine Many Virtues and a Big Fault SWING HIGH, SWING LOW, Paramount release of Arthur Hornblow, Jr., production. Stars Carole Lombard and Fred MacMurray. Directed by Mitchell Leisen; screen play by Virginia Van Upp and Oscar Hammerstein II; based on play by George Manker Watters and Arthur Hopkins; assistant director, Edgar Anderson; costumes, Travis Banton; sound, Earl Hayman and Don Johnson; film editor, Eda Warren; art direction, Hans Dreier and Ernst Fegte; special photographic effects, Farciot Edouart; musical direction, Boris Morros; compositions and arrangements, Victor Young and Phil Boutelje; vocal supervision, Al Siegel; original songs, Ralph Rainger, Leo Robin, Sam Coslow and Al Siegel, Burton Lane and Ralph Freed, Julian Oliver; photographed by Ted Tetzlaff. Supporting cast: Charles Butterworth, Jean Dixon, Dorothy Lamour, Harvey Stephens, Cecil Cunningham, Charlie Arnt, Franklin Pangborn, Anthony Quinn, Bud Flanagan, Charles Judels. Running time, 92 minutes. OF first importance to a picture from a box-office standpoint is the impression the viewer takes away with him from the film theatre. In the creation of the impression the story’s ending plays an important part as the viewer remembers longest what he saw last. The ending, after all, is just about the whole story, events preceding it being but steps leading to a logical result. The story value of a lover’s quarrel is not the quarrel itself; it is its results, its effect on people in whom we have become interested. Swing High, Swing Low interests us primarily in the affairs of Carole Lombard and Fred MacMurray. We fall in love with Carole as soon as we see her; she is a good fellow, ingenuous, good to look at. Fred is a little too fresh when we first meet him, but his improvement meets our indulgence half way and we rather like him. He is an irresponsible lad, one who would drift aimlessly without an anchor to windward in the person of a girl like Carole. But he can play a trumpet in a manner which in his hereafter should make him the logical successor to Gabriel, who by now must be getting quite old. And then there are the always dependable Jean Dixon as Carole’s loyal friend, Cecil Cunningham as an understanding night club proprietor, Dorothy Lamour’s singing and acting and Charlie Butterworth in a part which permits him to be almost sane, thereby becoming the best part he has had in a long time. Some day some producer is going to be wise enough to cast Charlie in a deeply sympathetic role and he will prove a sensation. to the above personnel some opening shots giving us intimate views of the Panama Canal photographed with rare artistry; an abundance of tropical atmosphere glamorously sustained by the expert direction of Michell Leisen, fascinating music, clever comedy and pretty girls, the whole blended into genuine entertainment. The screen is crowded with life through which the thread of the story runs in a straight line which clever direction keeps taut and is responsible also for consistently excellent performances by all the principals as well as by those to whom bits were assigned. There is nothing lacking in the richly visual production Paramount provided nor in the camera work of Ted Tetzlaff and Farciot Edouart. For the first three-quarters of the footage the picture proceeds joyously and is giving us a good time. True, we cannot understand why Fred does not take Carole, his wife, with him from Panama to New York when he jets forth to conquer the metropolis with his trumpetplaying, but we refuse to permit it to worry us greatly. But when he permits Dorthy Lamour, who has preceded him to New York, to lure him into her coils and fail to keep his promise to send for Carole; when he becomes a drunken, unkempt bum, we become disgusted with him and with the picture. The last impression we carry away is one of dissatisfaction in spite of the favorable impression the greater part of the film had created. Z) RUN KENN ESS is a poor motivating element in a screen story. We measure the entertainment quality of a motion picture by the degree in which our interest and liking have been enlisted for the hero and heroine. We want all the actions of both to be their conscious reactions to the situations in which they find themselves. Drunkenness, in itself disgusting when it makes the hero a sodden wreck, has little value as a story element because what a drunken man does leaves us with a feeling of being cheated, that but for the accident of drunkenness he would have acted differently. Certainly if I were writing a screen story I would deem myself a poor craftsman if I could not contrive a more logical motive than drunkenness to explain the action of the hero. Swing High, Swing Low fades out on a painfully maudlin scene in which the efforts of Carole and Fred to raise it to emotional heights made me feel sorry for them. The performances of both of them, however, are excellent. MacMurray is coming along rapidly. His appeal is to both the male and female picture trade, which makes complete his conquest of any audience. One can speak of Carole only in superlative terms. She is composed entirely of cinematic talents and uses each of them in every performance. She can express more with a sigh than most actresses can with a sustained speech. I agree that Luise Rainer deserved recognition for her fine work in Ziegfeld, but she had everything to work with, the emotional possibilities of her telephone scene having been developed by the story and presented to her on a platter. My opinion is that the Academy award for the best performance last year by an actress should have gone to Carole for characterization in My Man Godfrey. It was purely her own creation. Inherently crazy in conception, the part left everything to the person playing it. There was no building to her scenes, no situations handed to her ready-made, no emotional values enabling her to get off with a flying start. To me it was the most brilliantly sustained performance of a year of many brilliant performances. And in this new Paramount picture Carole again is brilliant, her singing, a new talent revealed for the first time, making her even more delightful than usual. Eyebrows Are Coming Down PERSONAL PROPERTY, Metro release of John W. Considine, Jr., production. Co-stars Jean Harlow and Robert Taylor. Directed by