Motion Picture Herald (Mar-Apr 1945)

SHOWMEN'S REVIEWS SHORT SUBJECTS THE RELEASE CHART This department deals with new product from the point of view of the exhibitor who is to purvey it to his own public. thout Love i M — Love and an Oxygen Helmet ae romantic team from ''Woman of the Year" turned to comedy again, which will be the best -ews for exhibitors and their customers. The pie is a Philip Barry play in which Katharine burn starred on Broadway and to which the tantial talents of Spencer Tracy have been !d for the screen. Comedy it is, ranging from .witty dialogue of the stage play to the antics 'a near-sighted inebriate. And for romance 'ie's the sure-fire "marriage in name only" me, which has not been done for a while and is plicated this time by the fact that one of the ies walks in his sleep. racy is the somnambulist, and a scientist to t. He agrees to the marital arrangement partly mse he needs an assistant for his experiments i an oxygen helmet, partly because he is through h love anyway and partly, too, because the nan who proposes it intrigues him more than admits. He relies on his shaggy terrier, Dizzy, %vake him before he gets into trouble. A.\ss Hepburn, in a role that runs all the way m prim New Englander to coquette, with several » in between, carries most of the show charmly. Starting off as a rather dowdy widow who lost interest in life after a short but happy rriage, she* develops, under Tracy's tutelage, into icientist and a woman willing to take another nee on love. There's even a scene in which she ;s her throaty tones on French ditties and pirou*s in the manner of her husband's former love, supplementing the story and adding much to the rriment, is the on-and-off romance between Lue Ball and Keenan Wynn. Wynn, who has an ;aging comic style, plays the ne'er-do-well and r-sighted cousin who finally joins the Navy and kes up his mind about the girl. Miss Ball is t and refreshing, delivering her lines smartly I taking command of the few scenes in which appears. Carl Esmond and Patricia Morison :r mild threats to the two love affairs, larold S. Bucquet's direction keeps the story ving at a suitably rapid pace, cushioning the t structure with laughs. The production, supered by Lawrence A. Weingarten, includes a few nes devoted to science without damage to the it-hearted intent of the material. Donald Ogden :\vart wrote the screenplay. >een in the home office projection room. Reiver's Rating: Good.—E. A. Cunningham. elease date, not set. Running time. 111 min. FCA 104S2. General audience classification. Jamieson Spencer Tracy Tie Rowan Katharine Hepburn :ille Ball. Keenan Wynn. Carl Esmond, Patricia MoriFelix Bressart. Emily Massey, Gloria Grahame, >rge Davis, George Chandler, Clancy Cooper. Royal Scandal th-Fox — Catherine Was Great Vhen Tallulah Bankhead discovers an impetuous ing officer alarmed over her safety has ridden ee days and three nights without a stop and hout a tiring blemish, and that a whole stable of ■ses has collapsed under his prowess, he's in. therine of Russia is on her amorous way again. , too, is William Eythe, the broad-shouldered 5TION PICTURE HERALD, MARCH 24, 1945 and well-upholstered young guardsman, from lieutenant to captain to major to colonel and, finally, to general in about the length of time it takes to reach this point in this review. As long as Eythe intrigues the empress, he is a success. And what a success ! When he confuses that white uniform he wears so stunningly with statesmanship and reform, his star begins to recede and so does his rank. When he spearheads a palace revolt in collusion with the army high command, it's a cinch his goose is about to be cooked. It is, but at about that juncture Catherine is giving an encouraging eye to Vincent Price, ambassador from Paris and the court of Louis. Fortunate for Eythe, also, since it saves his life and makes it possible to resume his genuine love match with attractive and appealing Anne Baxter, lady-in-waiting to the Mother of All the Russias. "A Royal Scandal," therefore, is a comedy geared high to fun and the double entendre, with not too much emphasis on the device of the lines with double meanings. It began, and thus is drawn, from "The Czarina," Hungarian play by Melchior Lengyel and Lajos Biro, which cut some distance in that medium on Broadway a generation ago. Bruno Frank adapted it and Edwin Justus Mayer did the screenplay which Otto Preminger — he directed "Laura" — has captained with astuteness and intelligence under the sly wink and cigar of Ernst Lubitsch as producer. Actually, the film is more a play than a motion picture in the latter's generally accepted definition. i Dialogue courses throughout with little interruption, and the bulk is amusing, smart and stands up well. Central attention, of course, is focused on Miss Bankhead. She is tailor-made for the role, plays it for all it contains and renders unto Catherine what was Catherine's, which was plenty. In Hollywood, after a while, they'll be talking about Tallu in terms of an Academy award for '45. Chiefly in support with the kind of performance it is now established custom to expect from him is Charles Coburn as the diplomatic, and occasionally dishonest, chancellor. Miss Baxter does a nice job of it in a sweet role. Eythe is properly doltish mentally and evidently a whale of a man otherwise. Price is competent, despite a burlesqued French accent incorporated into his characterization. Mischa Auer, in a small part, gets his comics across with satisfaction. Sig Ruman, headman among rascally generals, sometimes is made to ©verplay but this is a minor criticism. This attraction may present a selling problem • on names. Miss Bankhead's previous film, of course,' was "Lifeboat" to which exhibitors probably will turn for a key to audience acceptance of the star although her part here is fuller, more lush and entirely different in approach. Eythe is coming along, but has distance to travel. Miss Baxter has been playing romantic leads and only recently blossomed into stature with her excellent work in "Guest in the House." Previewed in a projection room zvhere the audience indicated it had fun by laughter and chuckles. Reviewer's Rating: Good. — Red Kann. Release date, April, 1945. Running time, 94 min. PCA No. 10386. Adult audience classification. The Czarina Tallulah Bankhead Chancellor Charles Coburn Anna Anne Baxter Alexei William Eythe Marquis de Fleury Vincent Price Mischa Auer, Sig Ruman, Vladimir Sokoloff, Mikhail Rasmuny, Grady Sutton, Don Douglas, Eva Gabor. Colonel Blimp UA-G.F.C. — A Briton at War One of the first of the larger efforts from under the widespread hand of J. Arthur Rank of London and other points, "Colonel Blimp," has reached this country for exhibition some two years after completion in England. Originally titled "The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp," and still bearing that on the title frame, the film was refused an export license by the British Government in 1943. It was indicated then that the authorities thought they found implications in the production considered derogatory of British arms, just then, as now, rather busy at the business of war. It is apparent that the British War Office experienced a change of heart. It is perhaps true today that some comment may be stirred in this nation, also at war, over the fact that the film implies rather explicitly that there are lots of good Germans, anti-Nazis in sentiment, a view which may be not too widely held here. In the Herald issue of July 10, 1943, the late Aubrey Flanagan, reviewing the film from London, said, "This is ostensibly one of the major British films of the War. ... It is a magnificent production, scrupulously made, consistently human, spectacular and discursive, always entertaining — but withal somewhat obscure in its ideas." He described it as a "prestige achievement." With elaborate, if at times uneven use of Technicolor, the production is a lengthy and spectacular offering, surely, but has a certain looseness of story. On occasion, opportunities for action which would have made the "movie" move have been permitted to glide by unchallenged. Roger Livesey is the picture's Colonel Blimp, who, it may be assumed, typifies the British officer of 1902 and the Boer War, of 1914-18 and the first World War ; and then, old, paunchy, mustachioed and red-faced, personifies an old-school-tie sort of sportmanship in the business of yesterday's wars which has no place in the bitterly realistic and crude "business" of Nazis warfare of today. Anton Walbrook, as Blimp's counterpart, a German officer, delivers a thoroughly competent performance. Relatively well known in this country, Walbrook offers the film's outstanding job of acting. The two become fast friends after a dueling episode in Germany in 1902, renew that friendship when Walbrook is a German prisoner in England after World War I, and resume it in the later phase, when Walbrook is an elderly refugee in the London of 1942 and Blimp is made to realize that he is of yesterday, albeit staunch and proud, always a British soldier. Romantic aspects of Blimp's long career are in the somewhat brittle hands of Deborah Kerr. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger wrote, produced and directed the production, which may be said to mark a step forward, as of 1943, in the British reach toward world market exhibition. Seen in a New York projection room. Reviewer's Rating : Good. — Charles S. Aaronson. Release date, not set. Running time, 148 min. General audience classification. Clive Candy Roger Livesey Tbeo. K. Schuldorff Anton Walbrook Edith Hunter 1 Barbara Wynne !• .' D'eborah Kerr Johnny Cannon J Roland Culver, Albert Lieven, Ursula Jeans, Felix Aylmer, James McKechnie, David Hutcheson. 2373