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**** AttlSK, MY LOVE
Here is one of the finest pictures of the year and Claudette Colbert's best performance ever — not forgetting "It Happened One Night." It is both timely and entertaining and should get a lot of attention.
As the film starts, Ray Milland is an American volunteer with the Loyalist army in Spain, and Claudette is an American newspaper gal who puts on the weeps to save Ray from being shot at sunrise by making believe she's his wife.
From here on it's a two-skeined story with our two leads battling both romance and principles. At the end they decide there are more important things in the world these days than the love of two humans for each other.
The story is told poignantly and excitingly and, though the sinking of the Athenia is a bit reminiscent of the Lusitania business in "Cavalcade," it's first-class thrill stuff.
Claudette is positively inspired; she's never been as good, as true, as believable, as lovely. And Ray Milland is not a number two Cary Grant any more. He's Ray Milland, a personality on his own.
There are a half dozen other good performers, most exciting of which is Walter Abel in an old-fashioned newspaperman role, and Ann Codee is tops in one strong emotional scene. Directed by Mitchell Leisen. — Paramount.
PREVIEW POSTSCRIPTS: The title of the picture comes from the Song of Solomon, Chapter 2, verse 13 . . . This is the third time Milland plays the part of a pilot (which he actually is), with a fourth to come in the currently shooting "I Wanted Wings" , . . Claudette saved the day by digging an old Maxim's menu out of her trunk, when the studio couldn't get any . . . Director Leisen has his own idea of a signature; he puts a live bird of
some sort into every film; this time there are doves in the Compiegne love scene; very appropriate, too.
*★** THE LONG VOYAGE HOME
It's a little early to begin distributing the Academy Awards for 1940, but there is no possible doubt that this film will get the Oscars in at least two and perhaps three classifications. To this reviewer's mind it is the finest film in a number of years. It is real cinema, real art.
John Ford, who inaugurates his production career with this picture, managed the astonishing task of integrating script, direction, camera and acting as the four have never been jelled before. The result is not a film in which all the portions are well done but a completely well-formed unit.
Taking as his base four one-act playlets by Eugene O'Neill, Ford and his writer, Dudley Nichols, have managed to evolve an exciting saga of the sea. Greg Toland is an astonishingly fine cameraman. Never before have you seen such black and white etching on the screen and several shots will thrill you to the point of applause.
This flawless script and photography are set off by a whole series of A-l acting performances by Thomas Mitchell, John Wayne, John Qualen, Ian Hunter, Barry Fitzgerald, Ward Bond and Arthur Shields. Each of the characters is carefully thought out and true. Each is better than you have ever seen him before. As a matter of fact, these virile men of the sea are so vividly
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MODERN SCREEN
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