Motion Picture Reviews (1943)

MOTION PICTURE REVIEWS Seven FOLLOW THE BAND O O Leon Errol, Eddie Quillan, Mary Beth Hughes, Skinnay Ennis, Annie Rooney, Samuel S. Hinds, Benny Bartlett, Irving Bacon, Frances Langford, Ray Eberly, Hilo Hattie, Alvino Ray and his orchestra, the King Sisters, The King's Men, The Bombardiers. Screen play by Warren Wilson and Dorothy Barnett, from a story in Collier's by Richard English. Direction by Jean Harborough. Musical director, Charles Previn. Universal Pictures. Eddie Quillan plays a country boy who would rather blow a trombone than milk a cow. He eventually moves on to the big city where he finds night club life a far cry from what he is used to. However his trombone wins acclaim and he makes good. The songs and specialty acts furnish an hour of pleasant entertainment for the family. Adolescents, A 2 to 16 Children, 3 to 12 Yes If interested GILDERSLEEVE'S BAD BOY O O Harold Peary, Jane Darwell, Nancy Gates, Charles Amt, Freddie Mercer, Russell Wade, Lillian Randolph, Frank Jenks. Screen play by Jack Townley. Direction by Gordon Douglas. RKO. This light-headed farce gains momentum through a series of impossible but amusing incidents into which the bombastic Gildersleeve gets himself. Summoned on a jury he decides that justice must be upheld against circumstantial evidence at all costs, and he becomes the sole member of the jury who protects a city crook, unaware of the fact that the defendant’s pals have sent him a bride through the mail. Hal Peary’s fans will find him true to his radio personality. Adolescents, 12 to 16 Children, 8 to 12 Matter of taste Harmless GOOD MORNING, JUDGE O O Dennis O'Keefe, Louise Allbritton, Mary Beth Hughes, J. Carrol Naish, Louise Beavers, Samuel S. Hinds, Marie Blake, Don Barcalay, Murray Alper, Frank Faylen. Direction by Jean Yarborough. Universal. Time worn gags and tiresome episodes are scattered through this story of a legal battle over plagiarism. The only bright spots in a drab and boring performance are contributed by Louise Beavers and J. Carrol Naish in character parts and by Mary Beth Hughes who sings several pleasing numbers. Adolescents, 12 to 16 Children, 8 to 12 Poor No interest HITLER'S HANGMAN O O John Carradine, Patricia Morrison, Alan Curtis, Howard Freeman, Ralph Morgan, Edgar Kennedy, Ludwig Stossel, Al Shean, Elizabeth Russell, Jimmy Conlin. Screen play by Perete Hirshbein, Melvin Levy, Doris Malloy, suggested by "Hangman's Village" by Bart Lytton. Verses from "The Murder of Lidice" by Edna St. Vincent Millay. Direction by Douglas Sirk. Produced by Seymour Nebenzal. M-G-M. On the eleventh of June 1942, the village of Lidice, Czechoslovakia, was burned, the male inhabitants shot, the women herded onto trucks and sent to concentration camps, the children taken away to be re-educated to honor the murderers of the parents. This was Hitler’s reprisal for the assassination of Reinhardt Heydrich, “Protector” of the Czechs, and the town was selected on the theory that the assassin had fled through Lidice and that the village was relatively unimportant to the Reich. This event is faithfully dramatized in ‘‘Hitler’s Hangman’’ with the saddistic cruelties of Heydrich which finally aroused the simple, self-respecting peasants to relinquish their policy of selfabasement. It rationalizes the assassination as a natural reaction. The writers have had the good judgment not to fictionize this historic episode, and they glorify the indominable spirit of a people who will some day be restored to their own. However, the Nazi military characters are stylized, and the Czech roles are curiously lacking in positive conviction. One beautiful bit is played by Johanna Hofer as a German woman whose sons die at the Russian front and who revolts at the treatment of the helpless people. Whatever emotional effect is achieved by the film as a whole is due to superb photography and special effects, and to the theme which in itself is deeply moving. Adolescents, 12 to 16 Children, 8 to 12 A graphic answer to Too tragic and why we are fighting mature ❖ JITTERBUGS O O Laurel and Hardy, Vivian Blaine, Bob Bailey, Douglas Fowley, Noel Madison, Lee Patrick, Robert Emmett Keane, Charles Halton. Screen play by Scott Darling. Direction by Mai St. Clair. Twentieth CenturyFox. The most avid fans of the comedians, Laurel and Hardy, will doubtless enjoy them in this new, if frankly unethical, predicament. It is a surprise to see them nimbly jitterbugging, and Laurel, disguised as a woman, is quite amusing. But they have little opportunity for subtle comedy, and this vehicle can be listed as only fair entertainment. Adolescents, 12 to 16 Children, 8 to 12 Matter of taste Only fair ❖ THE KANSAN O O Richard Dix, Jane Wyatt, Albert Dekker, Eugene Pallette, Victor Jory, Robert Armstrong, Beryl Wallace, Clem Bevans, Hobart Cavanaugh, Francis McDonald, Willie Best, The King's Men. Screen play by Harold Shumate from novel by Frank Gruber. Photography by Russell Harlan. Direction by George Archainbaud. Produced by Harry Sherman. United Artists. This is rip-roaring melodrama, a superWestern, with action enough to please the most avid fan. There is more than the usual amount of story to interest, and the excellent