Hollywood Spectator (1937-39)

Hollywood Spectator Page Eleven having “forged” a check, notwithstanding that he signed his own name to it. The law’s non-recognition of the debt makes the check just a piece of paper for which its drawer received no consideration, which in turn makes the fact of its being drawn on a non-existing bank account no concern of the law. I can write a check for any amount and on a bank in which I have no money, give it to you as a present, and I have committed no crime. But if I accept anything from you of material value — if I give you the check in payment of a legal debt — I can be prosecuted. In addition to all this, Power thinks he has destroyed the check and informs a half dozen witnesses it is no good, thus putting him beyond prosecution for criminal intent even if the check had been written for value received. It is the use to which a check is put, not the act of writing it, which brings it within reach of the law. So with this unsoundly constructed story and a cast of unsympathetic character, Ned Griffith set himself to the task of telling us an entertaining story. He is one of the most capable directers serving motion pictures, but the fundamental weaknesses of the story he had this time made his job a tough one. The presence in his cast of Gregory Ratoff made it impossible to keep the dialogue below a headache-producing volume of noise, even though in two or three scenes Ratoff spoke in a conversational tone, a blessed relief from his customary roar. Possibly working under influences he could not control, Griffith permitted Loretta Young and Winninger to scream at one another in a long scene which is the nerve-wracking peak of the production. T 1 HERE is a psychological fact pertaining to loud screen dialouge which directors do not take into account. It is that every person in a film theatre is theoretically as close to a character on the screen as the camera was when the scene was shot. In this Loretta-Winninger scene, we are taken into the bedroom in which the two are quarrelling; in close-ups of the two we are standing within inches of them. The microphone and the camera are alike in bringing things close to us. In a living theatre the volume of dialogue sound is mellowed by the distance it has to travel from the players on the stage to the people in the audience ; it is louder to those in the orchestra seats than to those in the gallery. In a film theatre the volume of sound is alike to all members of the audience, irrespective of the location of seats, the microphone having some strange power to project a whisper as far as it can a shout. This bedroom scene annoys us in two ways: physically by virtue of the impact of the loud noise on our nervous system, and psychologically by the lack of necessity for so much noise. In real life we have no patience with a man who addresses us more loudly than his distance from us makes necessary to our understanding of what he is saying. We regard screen dialogue in precisely the same way. Taking us into the bedroom of two people quarrelling in real life does not make it impossible for us to flee when the uproar becomes too much to bear. In a film theatre we have to sit and suffer. And there is another point about this particular scene which suggests comment applicable to others like it. If Loretta and Winninger had been given lines cleverly sarcastic and also witty, lines which would have their values enchanced by quiet and bitter reading, the scene would have been stronger dramatically, more entertaining, and without offense to our aural nerves. Shouting has no place in screen entertainment, never has had, and never will have when scenarists learn to write sarcasm instead of uproar for quarrel scenes. P OSSIBLY by this time you are wondering if Cafe Metropole is worth seeing. It is, if you are prepared to overlook the faults I have enumerated. Pictorially it is most attractive, Nunnally Johnson having seen to it that its settings matched the best of those being shown during this year of so many elaborate and artistic productions. Duncan Cramer, Hans Peters, and Thomas Little, responsible jointly for the visual quality of the picture, deserve the highest praise. Royer’s gowns worn by the women appealed even to my masculine, untutored eye. Lucien Androit’s camera work attains rare quality, one scene in a flower shop being photographed so expertly that each blossom gives you the impression you could pluck it from the screen. Another shot interested me. Loretta stands in the foreground, her figure sharp against the indistinct background. She sees something in the background; it clears; without losing her, we see what she sees in the background, which becomes indistinct again as she turns her back to it. That is an example of good photographic art and pure cinematic art, as it is through Loretta’s eyes we see what she sees. All the performances in the picture will please you, if, again, you can overlook the story weaknesses. Young Power is coming along amazingly. In every phase of his unfortunate characterization he reflects the perfect actor, completely at home in every situation. Loretta Young, whose screen appearances always please me, is her usual sweet and capable self Adolphe Menjou should not appear in so many pictures. I have only so many superlatives at my command and I feel I should not use them twice in the same Spectator. To what I say about him in my Star Is Born review, written before this one, I say ditto. Winninger was wise casting for the part he plays, and Helen Westley’s grande dame is an acting gem. Christian Rub, an actor I admire greatly and yet hope to see in a part worthy of his talents, makes his short characterization stand out prominently. And for his musical direction of the production Louis Silvers is to be commended. The music will be responsible for a generous share of whatever satisfaction Cafe Metropole will give audiences. Crazy Sort of Thing WOMAN CHASES MAN, Samuel Goldwyn production for United Artists release. Features Miriam Hopkins and Joal McCrea, Charles Winninger, Erik Rhodes, Leona Maricle, Ella Logan and Broderick Crawford. Directed by John G. Blystone; associate producer, George Haight; story by Lynn Root and Franklyn Fenton; screen play by Joseph Anthony, Manuel Seff and David Hertz; photographed by Gregg Toland; art director, Richard Day; sets,