Motion Picture Reviews (1942)

MOTION PICTURE REVIEWS Nine THEY DIED WITH THEIR BOOTS ON O O Errol Flynn, Olivia de Haviland, Arthur Kennedy, Charley Grapewin, Gene Lockhart, Anthony Quinn, Stanley Ridges, John Litel, Walter Hampden, Sydney Greenstreet, Regis Toomey, Hattie McDaniel, George P. Huntley Jr., Frank Wilcox, Joseph Sawyer, Minor Watson. Original screen play by Wally Kline and Aeneas MacKenzie. Music by Max Steiner. Direction by Raoul Walsh. Warner Bros. -First National. Since Custer’s memory was perpetuated for many years by gaudy chromos in public places and by the side shows of the circus, it is high time that a sympathetic biography of his life should be popularized. He was a rugged individual in every sense of the word, and according to this version, managed to flout discipline even in the army and do very much as he pleased. When he left West Point his scholastic record was the worst made by anyone since Ulysses S. Grant, but his horsemanship and sword play were brilliant. Naturally, some of his superiors hated him, while others were so captivated by his initiative and versatility that he was promoted over the heads of many officers. At Gettysburg, as Brigadier General, his swift decision to lead a series of cavalry charges was instrumental in saving the day for the North. After a period of retirement, during which he married the lovely protegee of General Sherman, he again entered the army and was sent to a frontier garrison in the Dakotas; there he whipped the 7th Cavalry into shape, and was so just and so capable in dealing with the Indians that for a while there was peace in the territory. Then dishonest promoters started a false rumor of gold in the Black Hills, brought in a stream of settlers to the land promised to the Sioux, discredited Custer to get him out of the way. When he returned, he realized that the only way to save the settlers was to pit his 7th Cavalry against the Indians and to sacrifice them to the last man, thereby giving time for the large regular army force to get into action. After his death, his treaty with the Sioux was upheld. This is a stirring picture of war, battles for glory and for a just cause, the romantic colorful war of yesterday. The cavalry charges are magnificent; it is amazing that horses can plunge and leap and fall without carrying themselves and their riders to destruction, but according to studio facts, they can. While the Indian warfare is aweinspiring, it is not necessarily gruesome, and because everyone knows from history that Custer’s troops were massacred, the end does not bring a feeling of overwhelming tragedy. Errol Flynn portrays Custer with dash and enthusiasm, as a man of action with a high sense of justice. The various men’s parts are well taken and show great variety from Anthony Quinn as Crazy Horse to Sydney Greenstreet as General Winfield Scott. Olivia de Haviland is charming, but she seems overcostumed for a picture of war and the frontier, even if she was known as one of the best-dressed women of her time. Adolescents, 12 to 16 Children, 8 to 1 2 Good Too exciting ❖ THREE GIRLS ABOUT TOWN O O Joan Blondell, Binnie Barnes, Janet Blair, John Howard, Robert Benchley, Eric Blore, Hugh O'Connell, Una O'Connor. Original screen play by Richard Carroll. Directed by Leigh Jason. Columbia Pictures. A farce in which the action is so fast and furious that it is fairly hysterical takes place in a convention hotel catering to all sorts of people from magicians to morticians. Two sisters (Joan Blondell and Binnie Barnes) as co-hostesses find themselves in a peck of trouble when they discover a corpse in a room adjoining theirs. From then on they are alternately aided and disturbed by the efforts of a newspaper man and their young sister fresh from boarding school. The ending comes as a surprise punch. While this film is not outstanding, good dialogue and some genuine comedy make it better than others of its class. Adolescents, 12 to 16 Children, 8 to 1 2 Little value Too mature TWO FACED WOMAN O O Greta Garbo, Melvyn Douglas, Constance Bennett, Roland Young, Ruth Gordon, Robert Sterling, Frances Carson. Screen play by S. N. Behrman, Salka Viertel and George Oppenheimer, suggested by a play by Ludwig Fulda. Direction by George Cukor. Produced by Gottfried Reinhardt. M.G.M. The plot given Greta Garbo is doubtless conceived to display her versatility, but it is heavy-handed stuff. The broad farce concerns a bride who soon discovers that the man she has married is unwilling to give up his gay, sophisticated New York existence for the simple outdoor Western life she loves. She follows him to New York and, masquerading as her own twin sister, glamorous, seductive and unconventional, she vies with another woman and wins him back by sex appeal. Many of the lines are coarse, and Miss Garbo's costumes, in attempting to be daring, succeed in being very unbecoming. The script and direction lack the light touch necessary for clever entertainment and are not suited to the star’s gift for deft and subtle comedy. It is duller rather than more immoral than many other films dealing with the same situation. Adolescents, 12 to 16 Children, 8 to 1 2 No No