Motion Picture (Feb-Jul 1932)

If You Rely On Motion Picture Reviews OVER THE HILL Still Packs A Wallop: This version of the old reliable tear-jerker proves that there are no styles in sentiment. It will be just as good twenty years from now. The cynical may sneer over its obvious situations and harrowing details, but this story of mother-love and mother-sacrifice is too fundamental to be dismissed with sneers. Any mother will recognize herself in the quiet, patient, commonplace little woman, played simply and sincerely by Mae Marsh, and will feel the quick tears come to her eyes as she makes her rounds at night, covering up restless little bodies and (note the touch of real Art) taking thumbs out of mouths. A group of charming children are conspicuous in the cast. With its Good Son and its Bad Son and its washing of poorhouse floors and its incredible happy ending, it is of course melodrama. But it is good melodrama, and that is what the public has always wanted — what it wants to-day instead of bald realism and sophistication. And the return of Mae Marsh to the screen is a real event. AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 MINUTES Doug In New Role — Will Please: Douglas Fairbanks has managed to inject his puckish personality into a travelogue. One feels that this is an experiment, successful enough to be followed by other pictures of the same type which will be much better. There is an uncertainty of treatment about this which makes the material of widelyvarying degrees of interest. There is too much arriving and departing in foreign ports; too much informative film showing the daily life of a Japanese lady; too many really terrible puns, and not nearly enough of such joyful scenes as the tea party given Doug by the King of Siam, with our hero perspiring and embarrassed. There are not nearly enough tiger hunts with Doug, pale and determined and a trifle seasick on his elephant, not enough of such Fairbankish stunts as the climbing of an ancient temple, hand over hand. Next time, please, leave information and sightseeing to travel lectures and give us more Douglas Fairbanks doing things like these! THE GREEKS HAD A WORD FOR THEM Spice Missing, But Acting Is Good: This is not a case of Greek meeting Greek. Rather did the Greeks meet Will Hays, who apparently thought he had a better word for them. Emerging from United Artists — the same studio that filmed "Tonight or Never" — "The Greeks" is an interesting study in contrasts. While the other picture retains all of its candid sexiness, this one has been given such a heavy coat of whitewash that it appears to suffer from anemia. Certainly it is an emaciated shadow of its former robust, ribald self. The three gold-diggers are now too good to be true. The story is as purified as the average bedtime yarn. Ina Claire strives valiantly to breathe life upon a completely expurgated character. Her performance is topnotch, as are those of Joan Blondell and Madge Evans. In this atmosphere, David Manners, as the young man with ideals, is the most believable. Lowell Sherman, who also directed, allows himself to overact. TAXI Something Doing Every Minute: It was a clever brain which devised a situation as full of violence and excitement as any gangster picture with the legitimate excuse of a taxicab strike for a background. In this setting, with the taxi company men armor-plating their cabs and the independent drivers hiring trucks to collide with them, we meet one Matt. Jimmy Cagney has never had a character which better fitted his personality than this of the quick-tempered, hard-hitting Irish taxi-driver. Desperately his girl, Sue (Loretta Young) tries by every trick of woman's wit to protect him from his own belligerent love of a fight, even to having him arrested to keep him out of trouble. With such a character for hero the picture is lively to say the least — filled with killings and chases, fist fights, knifings, shootings, and taxi collisions. But the chief interest lies in the characters rather than the plot, and one leaves Matt and Sue at the end with plenty of trouble ahead, despite his abject promises to be good. 65