Motion Picture Herald (Nov-Dec 1947)

SHOWMEN'S REVIEWS Rji^ISSUE REVIEWS ADVANCE SYNOPSES SHORT SUBJECTS SHORT SUBJECTS CHART COMPANY CHART SERVICE DATA THE RELEASE CHART This department deals with new product from the point of view of the exhibitor who ii to purvey it to his own public. High Wall MGM—Mad, Mad, All Mad Here's strong meat, a somber, sobering, melodramatic story with the principal action confined within the high walls that guard a state institution for the insane. If your customers can stand to be depressed — sometimes even shocked — for the sake of a tautly written and directed feature that's well acted, then "High Wall" is for them — and for you. When Steven Kenet, a former Army flyer turned commercial pilot, returns from Burma to his home, he discovers his wife, Helen, in a compromising situation with her employer, Willard Whitcombe. In Whitcombe's apartment Steven starts to strangle his wife and then blacks out. An old war injury brought about a blood clot on the brain and that clot is playing havoc with his memory. Steven thinks he has killed his wife and so does everyone else, including the police, who arrest him, and the officials of the. asylum, where he is committed awaiting trial. In the asylum is a comely young doctor, Dr. Ann Lorrison, who, as the picture progresses, begins to think that Steven is innocent. After a couple of injections of the newly discovered "truth serum," Steven is proved innocent and the real murderer is discovered. The plot is enriched with considerable telling -by-play : some suspenseful chase scenes, a sudden, violent murder, a brutal cat-and-mouse scene between the real murderer and the supposed murderer. But principally the enriching comes from the detailed study of an insane asylum which this picture offers. Never before has so authentic, so appalling a picture of such an institution reached the screen. The crowded wards, the whining, strange old men, the shrieks of the tormented and imprisoned, the droning of the oblivious happy, the indifferent, matter-of-fact attendants are all there — not for their sensation value alone, but to round out an exact picture. The background of the story is far more realistic than the story itself. But given Robert Taylor, Audrey Totter and Herbert Marshall as the principals, the story is sure to be noted and accepted by the vast audiences all three of these principals attract. Curtis Bernhardt directed and did an excellent job with the mood and atmosphere of the story. Robert Lord produced and Sydney Boehm and Lester Cole provided the screenplay. "High Wall" can be recommended for despite the "I know what's coming next" quality^ of the script, the authentic background detail, the heavy punch, add up to chilling entertainment. Reviewed in a New York projection room. Reviezver's Rating: Excellent.— Ray Lanning. Release date, February, 1948. Running time, 99 mm. PCA No. 12701. Adult audience classification. Steven Kenet Robert Taylor Dr. Ann Lorrison Audrey Totter Willard I. Whitcombe Herbert Marshall Dorothy Patrick, H. B. Warner, Warner Anderson, Moroni Olsen Dangerous Years 20th Fox Wurtzel — Juvenile Melodrama Some of the causes of juvenile delinquency, and some of the adult policies designed to offset them, are explored interestingly here in a melodrama forcefully directed by Arthur Pierson. William Halop, graduated now from Dead End Kid ranks and making a good job of this demanding assignment, heads a cast comprised mainly of young players but containing dependable regulars in all age brackets. The causeand-ef¥ect phase of juvenile delinquency appears the exploitation asset offering best box office yield, and the treatment of the subject is of a kind to warrant soliciting cooperation of school and civic groups. The script and story by Arnold Belgard casts Halop as leader of some 'teen-age boys who haunt a juke-box joint where the management permits poker in the back room and overlooks minor irregularities of deportment. Halop takes his gang out on a warehouse robbing junket and kills an educator, known to all of them, who surprises them in the act. Himself of voting age, Halop is tried for murder, and the trial, in which his under-age friends try to shield him, turns up background histories explanatory of what has happened. Some plot surprises are added for purposes of impact. Howard Sheehan served producer Sol M. Wurtzel as associate. Previeived at the studio Reviewer's Rating : Good. — William R. Weaver. Release date, not set. Running time, 61 min. PCA No. 126o7. General audience classification. Danny Jones William Halop Doris Martin Ann E. Todd Jerome Cowan, Anabel Shaw, Richard Gaines, Scotty Backett, Darryl Hickman, Harry Shannon, Dickie Moore, Donald Curtis, Harry Harvey, Jr., Marilyn Monroe, Nana Bryant I Walk Alone Paramount — A Kiss, A Sigh, A Shot in the Back Lizabeth Scott and Burt Lancaster are the kind of characters who get sparks in their stomachs when they look at each other. They meet — zzzzzz — ^blue flame, and they're in love. Now you take those two characters, throw a murder in the path of their true love and you've got a combination that's time tested at the box office. Hal Wallis need have few worries about the success of his production of "I Walk Alone." Only the magnetic attraction of his principals save Mr. Wallis, however, for his story is a curiously diffuse one that's split up the middle with plot trouble. Burt and his friend. Kirk Douglas, were bootleggers during the prohibition era. One day when they were trucking some rye over the Canadian border they killed a cop. Before Burt and Kirk separated, to escape being captured, they pledged each other that no matter what happened in the future they would share fifty fifty. Burt was captured and jailed for 14 years. Kirk develop into the owner of one of the city's smartest supper clubs. When Burt comes out of prison, he wants his fifty and Kirk swindles him. The crux of this situation comes when Burt, holding a gun on Kirk and surrounded by the very few old-time thugs he can find, demands a share of the club. Kirk, with the aid of his bookkeeper, points out that he isn't running a "speak" anymore, that nowadays a nightclub is really three corporations, a board of directors, a maze of paper work and a tangle of legal red tape. In short, , Kirk has only 17 per cent of the club, can't have less or he can't run the club, and so Burt must be satisfied with nothing. Burt, defeated by modern business methods, tears up the double-entry ledgers in a moment of frenzy and admits defeat. That's an essentially comic situation, but that's not the way it's played, not at all. The handling is complete with a cold-blooded murder sultry love scenes, blues singing, and some brutal fight scenes, all according to formula for the hard boiled drama. Byron Haskin directed the show and had to handle quite a bit of aimless dialogue. The screenplay was by Charles Schnee, adapted from an original play, "Beggars Are Coming to Town," by Iheodore Reeves. Seen at a New York projection room. Reviewer's Rating : Good. — R.L. Release date, January 16, 1948. Running time, 98 mmutes. PCA No. 12235. General audience classification. Frankie Madison Burt Lancaster Kay Lawrence Lizabeth Scott Noll Turner Kirk Douglas Wendell Corey, Kristine Miller, George Riguad, Marc Lawrence T-Men Edward Small Eagle Lion — Melodrama Following in the footsteps of such semi-documentary pioneers as "House on 92nd Street" and "13 Rue Madeleine," Eagle Lion here presents a hard-hitting, exciting and swiftly-paced picture dealing with the little-publicized activities of the Treasury Department's law enforcement agencies. "T-Men," produced by Aubrey Schenck under the Edward Small banner, has all the elements of appeal for both adult and juvenile audiences. It builds up steadily, gathering momentum as the tension mounts and climaxing in a classic gun duel. Stark realism in many of the scenes will keep the audience at the edge of their seats. A man is murdered among the hissing pipes of a steambath. Another must stand by helplessly while his friend is shot. Dramatic situation follows upon dramatic situation, with just enough dialogue to support the action. Performances — from Dennis O'Keefe and Alfred Ryder as the Treasury agents, to Wally Ford, as an underworld character known as "The Schemer" — are all excellent and convincing. Treasury agents O'Keefe and Ryder are as PRODUCT DIGEST SECTION, DECEMBER 20, 1947 3981