Independent Exhibitors Film Bulletin (1948)

REVIEWS in This Issue •THE BABE RUTH STORY" SHOULD SCORE AT BOXOFFICE Rates O • • where exploited . lUicd . I /-lists H'llliuiii Bcirlix, Claire Trcz'or, Charles Dickjiird. Sam l.ci'cnc. I'rcd Liglitner, Gertrude Nieseii. ll'iiliam Fra'alcy. Ralph Dunn. Lloyd Gnuijh, I'anI Ca't'anayh, Matt Brit/i/s, Bnbhy Ellis. Warren Ihtnglas. Pal Flaherty. Mark Kneniii. Bob MeiiscI, Ziijiiy .Sears. H. V. Kalloihorn, Harry Wisinrr. Mel Allen, Knox Mann in I/. Dircclcd hy Roy Del Ruth. There can he no question but that this cliroiiicle of bas^l)aH's most colorful exponent, the celebrated "Kitig of Swat," is loaded with surefire drawing power. Mighty Rahe Ruth is an American legend, an institution, beloved by millions of people wlio never even saw a baseball game. While producer Roy Del Rutii has not 1)een quite successful in capturing the real baseball atmosphere one expects in a story of the Babe's cireer, he has given tlie film enough human appeal to make it entertaining fare for general patronage. Added to the tremendous audience expectancy of the legions of ba.seball followers, and to Allied Artists' great exploitation campaign, this means "The Babe Story" should score a solid boxoffice hit. Some of the Babe's devoted fans will be disappointed in Vv'illiam Bendix's portrayal of their hero, for he is often more Bendix than Bambino. Producer-director Del Ruth's stress cn the mawkish phases of Bob Considine's biography makes one wish that he had devoted more footage to a factual recounting of the Babe's heroic feats on tilt diamond. Considine's book, naturally, lacked conflict and Del Ruth sought to fortify it with chunks of sentimental i)athos. However, tlicrc is plenty of entertainment in the picture as it traces Ruth's scarum youth, through his cocky, rambunctious ascent to baseball glory, tf. his mellowed twilight, when time slowed his iirowess — and always with a heart as big a:, the great out-doors. As the story traverses tile scenes of Babe's exploits, it introduces many greats and near-greats of baseball ; of them, I-Ved Lightner scores with a razor-shari) performance as Miller Huggins, the peppery, little Y ankee manager. Claire Trevor is excellent as the Babe's wife and the cast is bolstered V. ilh Charles Bickford as Brother Matthias, vSam I.cvene as his sportswriter pal and sultryvoiced Gertrude N'iesen in a brief spot singing ■ I'm Xobody's Baby." EXPLOITATION: Over and above the national S4, 000, 000 tie-in campaign initiated by A. A., this picture fairly bristles with exploitable angles the exhibitor can utilize — tie-ins with local ball clubs and sporting goods dealers, sponsorships by educational, parochial and youtii organizations — it can be made the most talkedab.jut event in town ! Set up a baseball scoreboard on your lobby front and offer "Babe Ruth" cards to the juvenile trade. From his squalid boyhood on the Baltimore waterfront, the Babe is accepted in a parochial school under the kindly wing of Brother Matthias (Charles Bickford), who gets him his The Bjbf Kuth Story \'l Sorry, Wrong Number \'l Good Sam I'l The Velvet Touch 13 Embraceable You 13 Adventures of Gallant Bes» 14 Eyes of Texas 14 Th? Timber Trail 14 Daredevils of th Clouds 14 first professional break with the Baltimore Orioles. He goes on to triumph as a sensational pitcher for the Red Sox and his slugging power brings him big league fame. Colonel Ruppert signs him with the Yankees, where he belts a record of 60 home runs and becomes a national idol. He keeps scrapping with manager Miller Huggins, but learns to love an<l respect him. And always the Babe is carefree with his money, reckless with his fists and so tender-hearted with kids that he leaves a game to help a woeful youngster with his injured dog. After a long courtship, he marries Claire Trevor, a show-girl. Father Time eventually slows him down and he goes to the Boston Braves where he makes a poor showing, alth.ough he does hit three homers in his last game. He takes a back seat in the sport he loved, consoled by his wife, and his friends. Bickford and sportswriter Sam Levene. Critically ill. he makes his greatest play by volunteering for treatment with an experimental serum. York. ■SORRY. WRONG NUMBER' HUMDINGER SUSPENSE MELODRAMA Rates • • • or better where exploited Paramount S9 Minutes I'arhara Stanivyck, Burt Lancaster, Ann Richards, Ji'endell Corey. Harold Vermilyea, Ed Begley. Leif Ericsson. H'illiain Conrad, John Bronificld. Jinuny Hunt, Dorotliy Neumann, Paul Fierro. Directed by Anatolc Litiak. Paramount may liave another "Lost Weekend" in the Hal Wallis-Anatole Litvak production, ' Sorry, Wrong Number." A gripping, pulse-pounding suspense melodrama has been made out of the Lucille Fletcher radio classic, originally written for the CBS "Suspense" projjram and repeated no less than seven times by p!;pular demand, about a neurotic invalid whose .sr>le connection with the outside world is her bedside telephone. By some freak connection, she overhears two men plotting a murder and gradually comes to the screaming realization that she is to be the victim. Where in "Lost ^Veekend," the bottle was the villain, here the telephone assumes the same proportions, as the innocent-looking little instrument becomes the vehicle for horror, madness and death. Miss F'letchcr, wlio also did the screenplay, has embellished the original radio script with a fantas tic, yet fascinating plot, and under Anatole Litvak's penetrating direction the one-character airwave chiller has become a fully-rounded, superbly played, cold-sweat motion picture. Barbara Stanwyck puts herself squarely in line for an Oscar with a portrayal of the neurotic which tops even her magnificent "Double Indemnity" performance. Her stark, hys,terical terror in tlie excruciating climax is communicated to the audience so forcibly, it will leave them as limp a.3 the lifeless hand that slips from the phone in the final scene. Despite a preponderance of dialogue and innumerable flashbacks, director Litvak's probing, restless camera gives the illusion of fluid action and the puzzling plot outlines become increasingly definite as the suspense sponds nobly to Litvak's demands. Burt Lanbuilds to its monumental climax. The cast recaster finally fulfills the promise he displayed in "The Killers" with an incisive, shaded performance as the neurotic's dominated, rebellious husband and outstanding bits are contributed by Ann Richards, Harold \''ermilyea and William Conrad, the moon-faced, blue-eyed hatchet man of "The Killers." The Stanwyck-Lancaster names on the marquee and the popularity of the radio play should start this off to .good grosses and word-of-mouth should build to smash proportions. Hal Wallis is back in the groove at Paramount. EXPLOITATION : The amazing number of people who have heard or hear of the radio play makes stressing of the film's origin a must. The key word in the promotion is Suspense. Barbara Stanwyck, spoiled daughter of chain drug store owner Ed Begley, is confined to her bed by a heart condition, alone in her mid-Manhattan mansion. As she attempts to call her husband, Burt Lancaster, she is accidentally connected with a conversation between two men and overhears arrangements to murder a woman at 11 :15 that night. Her attempts to report the call to the operator and the police meet with baffling frustration. In the two hours she has before the murder she learns that Lancaster, whcm siie had taken from a small town drug store and made into a vice-president in her father's organization, dominating him and their money, has become involved with a dope ring, stealing drugs from the company laboratories. She also discovers from her doctor that Lancaster has withheld from her the fact that she is a neurotic cardiac, and physically a well wojnaii. As she fits the pieces of the puzzle together, she realizes that the murder plot she overheard was actually her own murder, arranged by her husband. Lancaster, calling from out of town, tries to warn her. but her terror makes her helpless and the murder goes through on schedule. Barn. 12 FILM BULLETIN