Hollywood Spectator (1937-39)

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Hollywood Spectator Page Thirteen comedy that is carrying them now. There is no one else on the screen quite like Joe, and it would not be difficult to make him even a more valuable boxoffice asset. In Flirting With Fate he was fortunate in having a clever young director in the person of Frank McDonald, who realizes fully all the possibilities of the script which is the joint creation of Joe March, Ethel La Blanche, Charlie Melson and Harry Clark, whose starting point was a story by Dan Jarrett and Dorian Otvos. It is logical that something good should come from such a massing of brains. To Victor Young for his musical direction, Walter Samuels for his original music and Charles Newman for his lyrics goes credit for a large share of the sat; isfaction the picture will give. The Spanish sets designed by Jack Otterson and John Ewing also contribute their bit. ONE TO AMUSE YOU . . . • THANKS FOR EVERYTHING; 20th-Fox production and release; director, William A. Seiter; associate producer, Harry loe Brown; screen play, Harry Tugend; adaptation, Curtis Kenyon and Art Arthur; based on story by Gilbert Wright; music and lyrics. Mack Gordon and Harry Revel; photography, Lucien Andriot; art direction, Bernard Herzbrun and Mark-Lee Kirk; film editor, Robert Simpson; musical direction, Louis Silvers. Features: Adolphe Menjou, Jack Oakie. Jack Haley, Arleen Whelan, Tony Martin, Binnie Barnes, George Barbier, Warren Hymer: Supporting cast: Gregory Gaye, Andrew Tombes, Renie Riano. Jan Duggan, Charles Lane, Charles Trowbridge, Frank Sully, Gary Breckner, Paul Hurst, James Flavin, Ed Dearing. Running time, 70 minutes. ILL make you laugh, thereby achieving the end for which it was created. Give Bill Seiter a story which permits of comedy interpretation, an adequate cast and you can be prepared to sit back comfortably in your theatre seat — if it was built for comfort — and keep a grin on your face practically all the time the picture is running. Bill has such a lively sense of humor that a Seiter-directed picture always can entertain you even though it contains story situations with little regard for logic. Thanks for Everything is comedy, farce, social psychology, romance, antiwar propaganda, business, singing and radio broadcasting, all of which Director Seiter mixes and serves in a manner to make you give thanks for everything. You will notice that drama is not included in the list of ingredients, an omission which makes it unnecessary for you to take anything seriously. The players take it seriously, as they must to make it amusing, but it is one of those pictures which entertain you while you view it, but which will permit you to think of something else as you make your way out of the theatre. Well Cast Well Acted . . . ALL the performances are satisfactory. Adolphe Menjou is at his best in a role which fits him neatly, and Jack Oakie is better than usual in a part which is tailored to his measure, although I wish he had taken off his hat when he entered the dressing room of Miss America, whom he had not met previously and with whom he converses most politely with his hat still on his head. How directors permit such irritations in their pictures is quite beyond me. Binnie Barnes gives a really fine performance, a rather restrained one which does not permit her to display the scintillating comedy sense which delighted the audiences which saw her in Three Blind Mice, in which she shared honors with Joel McCrea, Loretta Young and David Niven. Jack Haley just about steals the show with his characterization as the average American who can sense in advance the ebb and flow of public fancy. Arleen Whelan plays her part nicely, but lacks the glamour to make reasonable the adulation bestowed upon her as “the world’s fairest,” even though Tony Martin does his best to justify it by his singing of a song written to put the idea over. There are four songs, by the way, all of them among the best numbers which have come from that prolific and talented team, Mack Gordon and Harry Revel. There is other music sprinkled through the production and under the direction of Louis Silvers makes a valuable contribution to the whole. I was impressed by the sound recording by Alfred Bruzlin and Roger Heman, the film editing of Robert Simpson, and the gowns designed by Gwen Wakeling. The camera work of Lucien Andriot, of course, was excellent, as his work always is. SOME AMUSING MURDERS . . . 9 THE LAST WARNING; Universal; producer, Irving Starr; director, A1 Rogell; screen play, Edmund L. Hartmann; original, Jonathan Latimer; photographer, George Meehan; art director. Jack Otterson; associate art director, Charles H. Clarke; film editor, Maurice Wright; gowns, Vera West musical director, Charles Previn. Cast: Preston Foster, Frank Jenks, Joyce Compton, Kay Linaker, E. E. Clive, Frances Robinson, Ray Parker, Robert Page, Albert Dekker, Roland Drew, Clem Wilencheck, Orville Caldwell, Richard Lane. Running time, 62 minutes. EPENDS upon how you like your murders. My personal taste runs to gruesome trimmings, somber atmosphere and solemn concentration on the part of the detectives who seek to solve the crime. Murder mysteries in book form constitute one of the most intellectual of all groups of fiction. The intelligent reader of one of them endeavors to outdistance the detective and arrive at the solution of the crime before he does. The same should hold true of a murder mystery used as screen story material; it should be treated seriously, the murder should be the focal point of all the action, and the audience should be permitted to fasten its mind on it. It is not difficult to make such a picture sufficiently gripping to keep its viewers on the edge of their seats and their Mimeographing Multigraphing TYPING — 10c per Page fleanne 1655 No. Cherokee (at Hollywood Blvd.) GR. 0330