Motion Picture Herald (Oct-Dec 1931)

46 MOTION PICTUKE HERALD October 10. 1931 gone big, and that he is rich — rich enough to start walking home along the rail track. This is rather delightful fooling, without any pretence or claim to super rank. Interest depends largely upon local characteristics, but for all that, the gags should be comprehensible and quite funny to the average American audience. Jack Raymond, director, has made the most of his material, though the story was on the light side for such length. The film was given its British premiere aboard the White Star liner Homeric, as she lay in dock for the Schneider Air Trophy race, got by wonderfully with a critical audience of more or less sedate type. Owing to exterior ill luck, this film ran into upwards of £30,000 production costs, which, though excessive, ought to come back on sales to the tougher fans. Produced by British and Dominions Films. Distributed by Gaumont-W. and F. Directed by Jack Raymond. CAST John Willie Entwhistle Sydney Howard Mary Murgatroyd Joan Hyndham James Hardcastle Moore Mainott Cyril Hardcastle Stanley Kirk W. H. Mooring Karamazov (Tobis) Drama The solemn note that is Russia in its art, music and literature sounds throughout the Terra production, "Karamazov," which opened the Vanderbilt theatre of Tobis in New York two weeks ago and closes this week. The Vanderbilt, "dedicated as a home for the presentation of the finest examples of cinematic entertainment of Continental Europe, is Tobis' showroom for picture distribution in America and follows to some extent the intimate theatre idea. True also to German producing principles, a high standard of music is interpolated to augment the moods of the picture. In this production the director, Fedor Ozep, reflects the theme with frequent shots of nature at its gloomiest, and with deliberate action. And the gay music of the cafe is used to intensify the contrast between the sorrow that is and the happiness that might have been. The theme of the picture, which is founded on Dostoyevsky's novel, "The Brothers Karamazov," is one of betrayed love — and murder. Dmitri (played by Fritz Korner) leaves his fiancee Katja (Hanna Waag) to go to his father for the money due him from his mother's estate. The tottering old man is infatuated by Gruschenka (Anna Sten) and Dmitri, attempting to break up the affair, succumbs to her lures as well. An epileptic, plotting to murder the wealthy old man, frames an alibi that involves Dmitri, and Dmitri and Gruschenka, at the moment that they learn of their true love, are interrupted by the police. Dmitri is sent to Siberia for 10 years and the last shot shows Gruschenka on the rear platform of the departing convict train. Terra production distributed by Tobis. Directed by Fedor Ozep. Dialogue by Erich Engel. Music by Dr. Karol Rathaus. Running time, 81 minutes. Released September 18. THE CAST Dmitri Karamazov Fritz Kortner Gruschenka Anna Sten Smerdjakov Fritz Rasp Ivan Karamazov Bernhard Minetti Fyodor Karamazov Dr. Max Pohl Katja Hanna Waag Fenja Liese Neumann President of the Court Fritz Alberti The Pole Werner Hollmarti The Cisco Kid (Fox) Western An audience at Long Beach theatre on the Coast seemed pleased with this offering, more than a little reminiscent of the "In Old Arizona" of an earlier date. Warner Baxter and Edmund Lowe, in the leads, met with real favor from the attendant patrons. Irving Cummings, director, was accorded praise for tiie manner in which he kept the pace of the film moving rapidly and with his gen eral handling of the picture, from start to finish. Baxter, Lowe and Conchita Montenegro, feminine romantic interest, were applauded for their performance. Marilyn Knowlden, a fiveyear-old, took the audience, and the balance of the cast, including Nora Lane, Willard Robertson, James Bradbury, Jr., and Frederick Burt, were rated satisfactory. Lowe is sent to pursue his old enemy, the Cisco Kid. His hunt and his affair with Miss Montenegro alike end unsuccessfully, though the dancer loves Lowe. When Nora Lane and her children are about to be ousted from their home, Baxter steals $5,000 from the bank and pays off the mortgage. Lowe discovers Baxter at the Lane home, to which he had returned to help little Marilyn, hurt in aiding his escape. Lowe, realizing that Baxter had risked his life to protect the child, pretends he does not know Baxter is the Kid, and permits him to escape. Al Cohn's dialogue is replete with lines which "took" with the audience. Some specimens of beautiful photography by Barney McGill do their part in making the picture effective as a whole, comment indicated. Produced arid distributed by Fox Film Corp. From the story, "The Romantic Rogue," by O. Henry. .Screen play and adaptation by Al Cohn. Directed by Irving Cummings. Photographed by Barney McGill. Release date, November 1, 1931. THE CAST Cisco Kid Warner Baxter Mickey Dunn Edmimd Lowe Carmencita Conchita Montenegro Sally Bentotf Nora Lane Sheriff Tex Ranson Frederick Burt Enos Hankins Williard Robertson Dixon James Bradbury, Jr. Bouse Jack Dillon Lopez Charles Stevens Annie Marilyn Knowlden Hindle Wakes ( Gaumont-Gainsborough) Romantic Drama This is not a sequel to "The Sleeping Beauty." The word "Wakes" describes the annual holidays, taken m masse, by the workers in the British cotton centres of Lancashire. It is a real British talker (at last), setting out to tell a straight-forward tale of life among the British working classes, without sermons or flag-wagging. And it will not only send up the prestige of the Gainsborough-Gaumont production unit, but will do a bit towards breaking down public prejudice created by less worthy British efforts. Here is a simple story (.Stanley Houghton's play) which has already been twice made as a silent subject, but which now comes to life on the screen in a most amazing manner. The brogue and the idiom of the cotton workers — musical and am.using — is fortunately not exaggerated, and will therefore be followed with ease by American audiences. The picture throws up an entirely new British star in Belle Chrystall, who plays the Lancashire girl, (Jenny Hawthorne.) The girl with a feminine friend goes to Blackpool sea-beach for the "Wakes." While there she meets the young son of her "boss," and in the thrall of the holiday spirit decides that she might as well accept his invitation to slip off to some other place for the "Wakes" week. The old folks at home won't know : she'd better have a good time while she can. What is the girl friend for anyway, unless to post an "alibi" postcard some time during the week? So she goes off for her fun, leaving the girl friend, and the postcard. Girl friend gets killed in a motorcoach smash, and the escapade is exposed, though our Lancashire girl only discovers this when, on her return home, her parents confront her with the facts. Her attempts to bluff and lie provide one of the most natural pieces of acting ever seen in any film. The secret out, parents begin to force the issue towards marriage, though the fellow is already spoken for elsewhere. There are family committee meetings ; long sermons on morals and the duty of the young towards the old: all the old fashioned cant and hypocrisy. When arguments have matured concerning the kind of wedding that is to be, the "bride-elect" awaken? the proceed ings with a reminder that everything seems to have been arranged except the proposal of marriage. No one seems to be have thought of asking her whether she wanted to marry the young prig who "being a man just took her off foifun." From that moment the girl betrays the strong independence characteristic of the womenfolk of her craft and class. She isn't to be bought or given away like a present with a pound of tea. So after more gripping and heart-touching drama, she just walks out on the whole lot, and goes off to find work and happiness in some other cotton mill. This film confirms the status of Victor Saville as one of the most sympathetic and imaginative of British directors — one of very few. His casting is practically faultless, and he has, by employing vivid characterizations and realistic industrial and carnival settings, caught the true atmosphere of this romantic bit of prosaic Britain that is called Lancashire. Outstandingly good character work comes from Sybil Thorndike and Edmund Gwenn, as the parents of the defiant Jenny Hawthorne, and Norman McKinnel as the millowner whose son starts all the trouble, all of whom look and live, rather than act the paragon of parental rectitude. John Stuart labors under the difficulties of an entirely unsympathetic part ; he is, one feels, unnecessarily caddish. After all, quite nice people take holidays. Fault finding dwells on minor points with this picture, however, and I shall expect it to remain outstanding among British films for quite a time. Produced by Gainsborough Pictures. Distributed by Gaumont-British. Directed by Victor Saville. Scenario by Angus McPhail. Edited by R. E. Dearing. Photography by Mutz Greenbaum. Running time, 79 minutes. Recorded on British Acoustics. CAST Jenny Hawthorn Belle Chrystall Mrs. Hawthorn Sybil Thorndike Chris Howthorn Edmund Gwenn Nat Jeffcote Norman McKinnel Alan Jeffcote John Stuart Mrs. Jeffcote Mary Clare Beatrice Farrar Muriel Angelus Sir Timothy Farrar A. G. Poulton W, H. Mooring The Ghost Trai in ( Gainsborough-Gaumont ) Tip-Top Crook Thriller Arnold Ridley's story, in the hands of Walter Forde, another young British director with a future, makes one of the best thrillers in quite some time. Story introduces splendid comedy material for Jack Hulbert and Cecily Courtneidge, both well known stage stars, and how they build on it ! Hulbert acts the "silly ass" of a party of rail travelers stranded on a dark wet night in the waiting room of a lonely country railroad station. They are warned by the station-masterporter that the station is haunted ; that sometimes at midnight "the ghost train" runs through, and that the only men who ever dared to look upon it "were struck dead." The party includes a fussy old spinster (Cecily Courtneidge), a honeymoon couple, a couple of salesmen, a doctor and so on — a motley set. But when the stationmaster is "struck dead" and a half-demented woman arrives on the scene, nerves get a trifle frayed. The ghost train will run, she says, but for heaven's sake none of them look out at the thundering phantom or they'll surely die. The ghost train whistles through the station, and the "silly ass," really (of course) a detective in disguise, just tunes in on a radio receiver and awaits instructions concerning the train's return. He knows that the train is no ghost, but a gun-runner, and that the stories and the acting of the stationmaster and the strange woman are all the bluff of the game. Unexpected visitors at night present no problem to the gun crooks, provided they are not too inquisitive. Hulbert finally gets word of the return of the train, and lifting a drawbridge, sends the whole lot with its illicit cargo into the river below. This is a splendidly worked climax, and one of the strongest points of the whole job is its speed. Clean, sharp and with feasible development of story, it rep