Motion Picture Herald (Oct-Dec 1932)

32 MOTION PICTURE HERALD November 5, 1932 SCHOOL AND SCREEN by RITA C. McGOLDRICK Opera, symphony, travel, adventure, rom ideal, clean sports, and the little interpreta current offerings for the coming season, credit of the industry it may be said that with an outstanding, brilliant and cultural off motion picture. To any fair minded critic of the screen, the current product must have some appeal. Here and there may be a weak spot, a picture not suitable to juveniles, an intellectual, exotic, brilliant, technical achievement like "Strange Interlude" or "Grand Hotel". On the other hand, there are a number of fine, wholesome, dramatic motion pictures to meet the demand of the most fastidious. School and Screen is interested in picking out of the pictures of the month those productions that should be of value and educational importance to the young people of the American audience. This service relies for its contact upon the teachers, the ParentTeachers, and the club women of the country, of whom there are many thousands. We are privileged to select from many productions pictures worthy of juvenile attention and classroom discussion. A picture does not have to be educational in the sense that geometry, geography and mathematics are educational to become a mental experience in the life of a high school boy or girl. It may be musical, dramatic, tragic ; it may be historic, or gallant in its interpretation of life as it may be lived with something of a grand nobility. These are the things we would emphasize to the youngpeople as a counteractant to the exotic boudoir scenes, the abnormal phases of living, that some of the most glamorous pictures present. At this season of the year, we hear much of the exuberance of youth. The air is full of football, enthusiasm, cheers, flying pennants, girls wearing chrysanthemums. There is school spirit, eagerness, the nerve of a clean vitality. The motion pictures, reflecting this background to the folk who may not attend the games, have in this season accomplished two glorious pictures of football. V "The All American" Universal set the pace in sports pictures when it made the successful "Spirit of Notre Dame." The picture, without love interest, was clean and wholesome — it registered at the box office. In the wake of this one Universal has produced "The All American," one of the strongest football stories that has come to the screen. The winning team is All American, a team that any football lover will be interested in. The story is strong, thrilling, clean, with a quality of sportsmanship in it that is worthy of scholastic attention. It is the post college adventures of a football player who has received a deluge of publicity. The denouement is a fine lesson to boys who would capitalize popularity and sacrifice the more important fundamentals of right living. ance built on the fundamentals of an ethical tions of fine literature, are among the screen's Despite general economic conditions, to the one company after another has come forward ering as a gesture in behalf of the better In the same class, and with equal brilliance, Columbia presents "That's My Boy" in a stirring, dramatic story of gridiron sports in which Richard Cromwell and Dorothy Jordan are co-starred. In this film we see a boy who is the sensation of the Freshman football squad. The coach believes him to be one of the greatest gridiron finds of all times. The boy has an intelligent running capacity ; they call him "Snake-hips" ; he has the genius to dodge through any line to a touchdown. In this, there is real money, more than half a million dollars to the University for which he is playing. Business men, with an eye to the earning capacity of the team, attempt to make things easier for the football star. They make him partner in a company that will be highly repaying. They provide for his clothing. He is invited to change his skylight room to one in more sumptuous surroundings. He is the idol of the team and the best bet of the interested bankers. Out of all of this turmoil, his own character has to assert itself in self-sacrifice, agonizing and determination. We have had several important sports pictures. We do not know of any one that has been stronger in ethical values, more glorious in spirit and finer in dramatic sequences, than "That's My Boy." This may be recommended to any audience, any where, with a sense of assurance that it will not miss fire. "That's My Boy" is a strong, poignant, virile lesson in the ethics of a boy's development. The picture is worthwhile; it cannot fail to hit its high mark with any audience. V "Klondike" This is a curious drama of romance. It finds its setting in the Klondike, and its beginning in the magnificent offices of a New York doctor who, undertaking an emergency operation that he believed necessary but almost hopeless, found himself indicted by the widow of the deceased for murder. With a reputation that is ruined he decides to go to another land. He flies with an aviator by way of Alaska, expecting to reach Tokio in a special speed flight. One sees the glorious photography of a plane flying over jagged snow-capped mountains, in fog and in ice. The wings of the plane become labored under the weight of frozen fog and gradually it is forced down and down to a calamitous ending. Beautiful photography, a sensitively dramatic heart interest, announce the story poignantly. This is the problem of the ethics of a good doctor who attempted what he thought As among the important pictures of this month School and Screen has elected: "White Eagle," Columbia "Chandu, The Magician," Fox "Seeing the U.S.A. by States," Picture Classics Operalogues, Educational "Klondike," Monogram "All American," Universal "That's My Boy," Columbia "S.O.S. Iceberg," Universal "Last of the Mohicans," Mascot "Air Mail," Universal "The Golden West," Fox "Little Women," RKO "Theft of the Mona Lisa," RKO he should do. When the plane crashes there is an opportunity for him to change his identity with the dead pilot. But a little boy's broken leg is more than his professional instinct can bear. In this instance he must be the doctor and not the pilot. There is something of fine and beautiful integrity about a picture of this kind. It is free of sex and all of the ramifications of the secondary entanglements. There is something of strong drama, clean and finely whetted, when the disgraced doctor sacrifices his last hope to operate on a needy case. Behind all of this there is the romance of the Klondike ; men who pay their grocery bills with grains of gold; men whose grains of gold do not amount to enough to pay for their blankets. There are camaraderie, generosity, understanding in the Klondike that offer something to the average boy or girl to think about. The fine flying sequences, magnificent mountain scenery, the strong human drama, the acting of Captain Frank Hawks, who, as a famous flier, comes to the screen in this picture as an actor as well as an aviator, all make this picture unusual. Altogether, the picture brings something of surprise. V Music Educational pictures will release the Kendall-DuValley series titled "Operalogues," which are short versions of the great operas interpreted in terms of selective artistry. This may be one of the best ways to introduce to young people the beauty and the glamour of grand opera. The music is exceptional ; the acting high grade. In every way the Operalogues are a cultural adventure. They should be on Family Night or Junior Show programs. We are deeply interested in the development of high grade entertainment for young people. Many theatre men have realized the importance of the growing demand for cultured entertainment. Women's clubs, schools, church groups, are clamoring for the motion picture that will develop and advance the thing they are trying to do. The motion picture producers have not failed in this field. The material is available, but it requires selective programs if it is to be brought to the attention of those who are interested in this whole work. The following pictures are analyzed with the hope that teachers will make use of them in the development of student appreciation of better pictures, and for the growth among young people of a new critical awareness of the distinctions in the art of the cinema.