Motion Picture Herald (Mar-Apr 1947)

SHOWMEN'S REVIEWS ADVANCE SYNOPSES SHORT SUBJECTS COMPANY CHART SERVICE DATA 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. The Egg and I U niver sal-Inter national -Sunnyside Up Betty MacDonald's best selling book — its sales are up around the 1,500,000 mark — was a series of comical incidents about herself, her husband and their enthusiasm over a chicken farm. All of that is in the film, plus a third angle named Louise Allbritton, who tries to make Fred MacMurray, who ends up by buying her model farm. MacMurray is the enthusiastic, returned war veteran who turns from bonds to chickens. Claudette Colbert is the wife who never had a voice in the choice. She's just a first-class sport who blunders her way through to final success. Only it never proves that easy. Neither one of them knows anything about life in the country and even less about life among the chickens. They learn the hard way, which turns out to be hard and funny for them and any audience. The roof of the dilapidated old house they buy leaks. The stove falls apart. Her recipes never seem to turn out according to the book. The hog turns obstinate. A tree falls the wrong _ way and wrecks the chicken house. There is a forest fire which wipes them out and warm, friendly neighbors who swarm in with food and equipment to set them up again. Miss Allbritton is whatever feminine menace the film may boast. She's in the open in her play for MacMurray, who seems dumb until it finally develops he has wangled her model farm on easy terms. Miss Colbert, on the other hand, misunderstands the situation , goes home to mother, has her baby and a final change of heart. This returns her to MacMurray, where the complications unravel for a happy finish. "The Egg and I" is never strong on story. But it doesn't have to be. Here it's a case of funny incident piled atop funny incident, with an occasional heart tug stuck in by Chester Erskine and Fred F. Finklehoffe in an .adroit and fast-moving script. They veer sharply toward slapstick on a number of occasions although there isn't a thing in the world wrong with their decision to do so. The amusing episodes come along often, but probably reach their apex in the barn dance sequence at which the city-bred Miss Colbert meets the prancing countryside full tilt. Performances are tops. Miss Colbert may depend upon it that this is one of her best. MacMurray isn't far behind. Stalwart support comes from Percy Kilbride, Marjorie Main and Billy House, among others. Erskine _ shared the script with Finklehoffe and also directed. Both served as co-producers in a very neat job of hilarious entertainment. Seen at home office projection room. Reviewer's Rating: Very good. — Red Kann. Release date, not set. Running time, 108 min. PCA No. 12222. General audience classification. Betty Claudette Colbert B°D Fred MacMurray Marjorie Main, Louise Allbritton, Percy Kilbride. Richard Long, Billy House, Ida Moore, Samuel S. Hinds, Esther Dale. Elisabeth Risdon, Fuzzy Knigtit, Victor Potzel Carnival in Costa Rica 20th Century-Fox — Gaudy Hubbub There's a wild and raucous time for the customers in this latest Twentieth Century-Fox release. In a holiday mood for a holiday picture, the studio rounded up every loose extra on the lot, covered them with confetti and gaily colored balloons, set them down in some breathtaking scenery and shot the works with music and dance. The result is a bright bubble of a Technicolored musical that stars Dick Haymes, Vera-Ellen, Cesar Romero and Celeste Holm, all carrying on to the tune of Ernesto Lecuona's music. This loud and fast musical tells the regulation boy-meets-girl story, but this time it's given an anthropological twist because in Costa Rica it's the custom for families to arrange marriages for their offspring without ever a word to son or daughter. Under this setup, Vera-Ellen is supposed to marry Romero. But instead Vera marries Dick, Romero marries Celeste in the midst of a terrific barrage of Spanish sputterings. Vera-Ellen is in the main responsible for carrying the show along. Her numerous dances are tops and she has a decidedly fresh and engaging personality. Celeste Holm isn't given the chance to prove on film that she is one of the New York stage's top singing comediennes. The tunes and dances follow one another in rapid succession. Now and then there is time out for some breathless dialogue. But by and large it's music through and through, an exciting kind of music that reaches a new peak in frenzy when the Lecuona Cuban Boys, as mad a bunch of exhibtionists as ever hammered out a rhumba, take the stage. Three writers, John Larkin, Samuel Hoffenstein and Elizabeth Reinhardt get credit for the original screenplay, which dwells on the possibilities of a full moon in fiesta time. Gregory Ratoff directed. William A. Bacher produced. Seen at the home office projection roonu Reviewer's Rating : Good. — Ray Lanning. Release date, March, 1947. Running time, 95 min. PCA No. 11499. General audience classification. Jeff Stephens Dick Haymes Luisa Molina Vera-Ellen Pepe Castro Cesar Romero Celeste Celeste Holm Anne Revere, J. Carrol Naish, Pedro de Cordoba, Barbara Whiting, Nestor Paiva Great Expectations Universal-International — Dickens This Cineguild production is an artful compressing into two hours' time of Dickens' rambling novel of witches and convicts, malice and young love, lawyers and judges of nineteenth Century London. It's a strange and emotional telling of a strange and troubled story, peopled with a vast number of eccentrics, some of them charming, some of them spiteful, some of them brutal. With careful attention paid to detail, this story charms by its illusion of authenticity, its ability to evoke a rare mood of suspense and other-worldliness, its deep peering into three dimensional characters. There is enough violence here for a bloodand-thunder drama, enough young and unrequited love for a soap opera, enough madness and cobwebs for a horror picture. But all are presented with restraint. Because of this restraint and because of the relatively unknown leads, John Mills and Valerie Hobson, this picture will take some special handling. But the fact that the picture will play New York City's Music Hall and the fact that this same hall is known far and wide should lighten the labor of publicity. The story tells of Pip, a blacksmith's apprentice, who, as a child, falls in love with Estella. She has been adopted by a rich, eccentric woman who for 40 years has lived in a cobwebbed mansion mourning for a lost lover. Pip is befriended by this woman and by an escaped convict. Later Pip is adopted by someone he does not know and is promised a fortune when he comes of age. He believes the old woman has adopted him, and uses the money to live as a gentleman. Meanwhile, his rather tortured love affair is abruptly terminated by Estella's decision to marry another. If that weren't complication enough, Pip learns that it is the convict who has adopted him. And then to top that, he learns that Estella is the daughter of the convict and a woman who is a murderess. When Estella learns of her ancestry, she returns to the cobwebbed mansion. Pip follows her and, in a dramatic scene, rips aside the dusty curtains to let the sunshine in. Estella sees the light. This vast, encyclopedic story is beautifully acted and provides unusual entertainment. David Lean directed. Ronald Neame produced. Seen at the home office projection room. Reviewer's Rating: Good. — R. L. Release date, not set. Running time, 115 min. PCA No. 12128. General audience classification. Pip John Mills Estella Valerie Hobson Joe Gargery Bernard Miles Taggers Francis L. Sullivan Finlay Currie, Martita Hunt, Anthony Wager, Jean Simmons, Alec Guinness, Ivor Bernard Apache Rose Republic — Western with Color Roy Rogers, favorite singing cowboy, is starred in this Trucolor Western, which has music and action characteristic of musical Westerns. Rogers is supported by Dale Evans for songs, and Olin Howlin for comedy. Bob Nolan and the Sons of the Pioneers, as ranch^ hands, add to the entertainment value of the picture with pleasant renditions of several songs. Miss Evans sings "There's Nothin' Like Coffee in the Mornin'," which is a catchy number written by Tim and Glenn Spencer. 'Apache Rose," the title song, and "Wishing Well" are most effectively presented by the entire company. Gerald Geraghty wrote the original screen MOTION PICTURE HERALD, MARCH 29, 1947 3549