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Page Thirty-two
April 16, 1938
clever and spontaneously performed, receiving and meriting good laughs, but, by and large, the laughter from the audience was feeble. The picture is often talkative, there are lapses in the tempo of its move¬ ment, and digressions in the action. It will get by be¬ fore indiscriminate audiences and on double bills; but so has a lot of truck. Penner fans will perhaps see the picture through more mirthful eyes, for the fun¬ nyman’s bag of tricks is much in evidence and he strews his wares about with energy and zeal.
Too Big a Bite . . .
OST patrons, however, probably will opine that the comedian is not quite equal to carrying a picture on his own. The chief weakness of Penner's comedy is that it is out of key with the acting of the other performers. Penner’s clown, lumping all the inanities of the human race, is funny in vaudeville and radio and even in musical films because the pat¬ ter he uses for such occasions permits the character to be something of an abstraction; but when the same figure is placed in realistic situations, an incongruity results. When, upon seeing a poster on a tree an¬ nouncing a reward from the police for his apprehen¬ sion, he bursts into his babyish bawl, the effect is jarring. No one can believe in such an idiot. His funniest stunts are those he does mostly in panto¬ mime. Clowns, incidentally, have never been very successful in talking pictures.
Performances Undistinguished . . .
HERE are no noteworthy performances, most of the players doing their stints in the same kinds of parts they have done innumerable times before. Lu¬ cille Ball, as the comedian's wife, is comely, but her attainments as an actress are negligible. She must have practiced at idle moments when a little girl, in order to be able to burr her r’s in the rivet-like man¬ ner that she does. June Travis evinces acting intelli¬ gence, but the camera is not focused on her long enough for her to make much of an impression. Rich¬ ard Lane, Fritz Feld, Tom Kennedy, Bradley Page are, of course, efficient. Cameraman Jack MacKenzie deserves credit for some skilful process shots of a mountain road unwinding through the window of a trailer which is running wild down the grade, these shots lending excitement to the final sequence. Too bad he was not given more agreeable things to photo¬ graph throughout the picture. For there are few
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