Hollywood Spectator (1937-39)

Record Details:

Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.

Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.

Page Ten March 27, 1937 W. S. Van Dyke; features Reginald Owen and Una O'Connor; screen play by Hugh Mills and Ernst Vajda; from a play by H. M. Harwood; musical score by Franz Waxman; photographed by William Daniels; wardrobe by Dolly Tree; film editor, Ben Lewis; assistant director, Dolph Zimmer. Supporting cast: Henrietta Crosman, E. E. Clive, Cora Witherspoon, Marla Shelton, Forrester Harvey, Lionel Braham, Barnett Parker. Running time, 88 minutes. FTER his impressive appearance opposite Garbo in the dignified and important Camille, it is a sad comedown for Bob Taylor to be seen in such a poor thing as this. Obviously it was turned out in a hurry on the Hollywood principle: “Get the money today and let tomorrow take care of itself.” Personal Property is an indifferent rehash of an indifferent British farce-comedy of situations, its appeal being in their comedy. W. S. Van Dyke directed it apparently in a hurry and with his mind on something else. The picture strikes only one new note: Jean Harlow’s eyebrows have slipped back to their original position. This eyebrow replacement again demonstrates the Power of the Press. A few months ago Phil Scheuer and I threatened to join hands and use our respective publications in a war on the increasingly upward trend of the eyebrows of the young women of the screen. At our first council-of-war we munched Brown Derby food and determined to delay our opening attack to see if the threat would not prove sufficient. So it proved to be. Eyebrows are coming down and our screen girls are losing their mechanically contrived, startled look. Again the power of the press has been demonstrated. There are other things in Personal Property, some of them highly amusing, but the whole thing is scarcely worthwhile. Undeveloped Possibilities WHEN LOVE IS YOUNG, Universal. Associate producer, Robert Presnell; director, Hal Mohr; original, Eleanore Griffin; screen play, Eve Greene and Joseph Fields; photographer, Jerome Ash; special effects, John P. Fulton; original songs, Jimmy McHugh and Harold Anderson; musical director, Charles Previn; art director, Jack Otterson; stage number design, John Harkrider. Cast: Virginia Bruce, Kent Taylor, Walter Brennan, Greta Meyer, Christian Rub, William Tannen, Jean Rogers, Sterling Holloway, Nydia Westman, David Oliver, Jack Smart, Laurie Douglas, Franklin Pangborn. QUITE conventional in all departments. It is Hal Mohr’s first fling at direction and gives evidence of his having concerned himself more with the mechanics of his script than with its human possibilities, a treatment we logically could expect from one making his initial bow as a director. Universal has given the picture a handsome production and the photography of Jerome Ash makes it visually attractive. A particularly striking setting is one designed by John Harkrider. As entertainment, however, IV hen Love Is Young is quite ordinary despite the studio’s honest attempt to develop its possibilities. One of its weaknesses is the characterization given the leading man, played by Kent Taylor. The story concerns his romance with Virginia Bruce. A romance is acceptable entertainment only in the degree in which it makes logical the eventual marriage of the two parties to it. Kent is characterized as a disagreeable, snarling, unreasonable young man who shouts insults at the girl with whom he is in love until the audience would have been pleased more if Virginia had batted him over the head with an ax-handle instead of going into his arms. The story is as meaty as the ordinary run of its kind — the home-town girl who goes to the city and makes good on the stage in the Big City. Its lack of entertainment is due to the manner of its treatment. F t OR instance, on a crowded dance floor an intimate conversation is carried on in tones which must have carried the words to the ears of at least half the other couples. You see the same thing in many pictures, a revelation of stupidity which is becoming one of my pet peeves. The argument used to justify it is that it provides movement, an argument based on cinematic ignorance, as such a scene checks the movement of the story. Filmic motion is in no way related to physical motion. Hearing a boy and girl in loud tones exchanging confidences which we know in real life they would whisper to one another, checks the forward flow of the story by introducing an element which disturbs the continuity of our absorbtion in it. There would be more real motion in showing a boy and girl standing perfectly still in a romantic setting, their hands gradually getting closer until hers rests in his. The average director, however, thinks the only way to give a romantic scene what he considers motion is to have the girl climb a telephone pole and send the boy up after her to grasp her hand. Another disappointing feature of the Universal picture is the scant treatment given the Harkrider setting. We get one comprehensive glimpse of it. Its beauty is breath-taking; it is one of the rarest visual treats the screen has given us, but just as our eyes are beginning to grasp the components of such a charming whole, there is a cut to a fragment to bring us closer to some action, and thereafter we must be content with peeks at various bits of it. Keeping all, or at least nearly all, the composition before us for the duration of the sequence would have been wiser film editing. However, we saw enough of the setting to gain an impression of what valuable contributions John Harkrider can make to the visual beauty of screen offerings. SOME fault can be found with the nature of some of the performances, but none with the manner in which all the members of the cast responded to direction. Virginia Bruce again demonstrates what a talented young woman she is. It is not her fault that in the early sequences she lays the agony on a bit too thickly, nor can we quarrel with her because of her failure to subject Taylor to the ax-handle treatment. She is beautiful to behold, has a singing voice of rich quality and uses it intelligently. What Taylor has to do he does well. Walter Brennan gives his usual skilful performance, but toward the end it is his misfortune to be dragged into scenes to supply comedy touches where none should be. I was glad to see Christian Rub in an important role. A highly talented character actor, he is given too few opportunities to display his wares. Other who deserve mention are Greta Meyer, William Tannen, Sterling Hoi