Modern Screen (Jan-Nov 1944)

Ladies and Gentlemen — It's a Sweetheart of a Picture! Yes I It's gay with that youthful romantic spiritl It's reckless with the kind of abandon that makes for swell fun when you |oin in the joy! It's a grand cast in a grand screen treat t Robert LIVINGSTON and RUTH TERRY with HENRY HULL GRANT WITHERS THURSTON HALL LLOYD CORRIGAN (Continued from page 6) emerged, with Sam Wood waving his expert directing ringer. The cast is the sort which once in a blue-moon causes an author to mutter into his beard: "They bring to my lines a darned sight more than I ever put into them!" Notably heading the players is Gary Cooper at his Gary Cooper-ish best. If you must know the story, all right, but it's far better that you wait and get it for yourself. The reason is obvious. "Casanova Brown" is zany! And first rate motion picture zaniness has to be seen to be fully appreciated. It's about Casanova Brown, college professor, who can trace his lineage back to that cut-up Giovanni Casanova, whose proper noun of a name has become synonym for "improper." Let us hasten to assure all, however, that our local Casanova commits his delightful indiscretions within the conservative framework of the American way. Let us also hasten to assure that Casanova Brown, college professor, ceases being scholarly almost before he begins. In the opening scene he steps off a New York train and pleads with his waiting fiancee (Anita Louise) to never again permit him to visit New York. There is portent of impending events in "them thar words." And do they impend! A father-in-law to end all father-in-law traditions, fabulously played by Frank Morgan, lurks around the corner. So do half-million-dollar houses afire, maternity wards, kidnappings, altar hit-and-missings. It's all literate, high-grade nonsense, as epicurean as Casanova Brown's famed ancestor himself, which starts early and is sustained throughout. "Casanova Brown" succeeds in packaging a juicy 1944 version of his ancestor's goings-on that is certain to slide uproariously down the American gullet. Trapped by something known as love, Professor Casanova, while on this visit to New York, which was originally for the purpose of selling a manuscript on the spicy subject of his Venetian ancestor, meets a Barnard college student and almost immediately ups and marries her. All this, mind you, while back home he has a very beautiful and very blonde fiancee, who is going to be waiting at the train when he arrives home and to whom he is going to say portentously, "Never, never let me go to New York again, my darling." Clutch your brow along in here. But there's a flashback sequence which will straighten things out for you. At the point where Casanova Brown steps off the train, neither the audience nor his fiancee know that he has been married, and that all in that same brief interim, the marriage has been annulled. a'wcritin' at the church . . . The major complication sets in on the day of his impending second marriage when a letter summons him to a maternity hospital in Chicago. This letter falls into the hands of that outrageous old. bounder, his nearly-but-not-quite father-in-law. Desperate, Casanova Brown is forced to take papa-in-law into his confidence. Together they figure out, that by plane and grace-of-God, Casanova can make-it and sneak-it to Chicago and back, before the wedding ceremony that afternoon. The story, by way of Casanova taking father-in-law into his confidence, moves, via flashback, into the story of marriage number one to the smoky-haired Barnard student, which is played for all it is worth by Teresa Wright. The arrival of young couple number-one at the half-million-dollar home of the Barnard college bride, is the scene of as comic a fire (which incidentally razes the house to the ground) as you will find in a celluloid library of motion pictures. The sophomore bride's mother is played by Patricia Collinge in the key of mild and delightful dementia. An ardent disciple of astrology, she reads no good in the stars' version of her new son-in-law, and is instantly as opposed to him, and for just about as logical a reason as she is to cigarette smoking. In his anxiety to propitiate his new mother-in-law, Casanova, caught smoking, inadvertently crams the lighted fag into his coat pocket. After a while his fatherin-law leans snifnly forward to casually inquire, "Aren't you on fire, my boy?" Thereafter ensues . . . It is after this marriage is annulled by way of parental interference between two young people who basically love one another, that Casanova steps off the train and is met by his waiting fiancee. We now emerge from the flashback to marriage number-one and catch up with Casanova Brown on the day of his impending second marriage. Only a few movie hours from the altar, Casanova makes his hurried dash for Chicago to ex-wife and child. His arrival at the maternity hospital; the devices of bride number-one, who has lured him back to her side as she lies on her hospital bed after having borne him a daughter; the processes by which father-love came to Casanova; the kidnapping; the ultimate calling on-again of a called-off marriage while the infant daughter of these two reunited lovers gives an exultant little belch, tells as inadequately on paper as the story tells brilliantly across the screen. You've got to see it to appreciate it. Never mind about lovely fiancee waiting at the church. You still like Casanova Brown, and you know that beauteous betrothed number-one will find quick compensations. Even in those rare moments when all this farce widens and ever-so-slightly thins out, it is sustained above the danger line by consistently good direction and acting, which starts with Sam Wood, moves brightly through such principles as Cheersfor Gary-Cooper, Bravo-Frank-Morgan, Swell-Trouper Teresa Wright, Applausefor Patricia-Collinge and for Sweetnessand-Light Anita Louise and so on down through a competent list that hasn't a black mark against it. , , From ail °f which you will deduce that Casanova Brown" is a honey of a movie. Which it is!— Int. Pictures released by RKO I SAW IT HAPPEN Nancy Kelly and Preston Foster were scheduled to appear at a Bond Rally being held at the Monesson, Pa., railroad station. In view of the fact that it was getting late and the stars had only a half-hour to spare between trains, the Master of Ceremonies decided to start reading Mr. Foster's speech about the three wounded soldiers who were present as guests of honor. When he got to the middle of the speech, the stars arrived and dashed up to the platform — with Preston Foster going right into the same speech, word for word, but with much dramatic inflection! I wonder if Mr. Foster knows yet why that hysterical, but very appreciative, audience went into such gales of laughter at his truly moving rendition! Joan Kelly, Donora, Pa.