Motion Picture Reviews (1934)

Eight Motion Picture Reviews DEATH ON THE DIAMOND » » Robert Young, Madge Evans, Nat Pendleton, Ted Healy. From the book by Cortland Fitzsimmons. Direction by Edward Sedgwick. M-C-M. “Murder most strange as in the best it is, but this most strange” for the victims are two baseball players, members of the St. Louis Cardinals. When Larry the star pitcher is injured and two other players lie dead, we suspect foul play on the part of gangsters who stand to lose a cool million if the Cardinals win. However, baseball must go on, and undaunted by threats, bribes and mortal danger, the players take their places on the field. How the pennant is won and the murderer detected we leave to the baseball murder-mystery fans to discover. Adolescents, 12 to 16 Children, 8 to 12 Passable No DANGEROUS CORNERS » » Virginia Bruce, Conrad Nagel, Melvyn Douglas, Erin O’Brien-Moore, Ian Keith, Betty Furness, Henry Wadsworth, Doris Lloyd. From the play by J. B. Priestly, adapted by Anne Chapin and Madeleine Ruthven. Direction by Phil Rosen. R-K-O. This is a sophisticated drawing-room drama concerning members of the smart set. It is intelligent and thought provoking but probably too embittered and pessimistic to have wide appeal. The basic thought, that the whole truth conncerning our private lives may do great harm rather than good, is made credible. A publishing firm is shocked by the loss of a bond. The mystery appears to have been solved when one member commits suicide. There are two endings to the picture: one where the persistent curiosity of one member of the firm, aided by a trivial accident, is used to pry into the lives of several married couples with shocking results. The other, where the chance remark which started the game of truth was not uttered and the happiness of all concerned was left intact. The lines are good, the action well keyed, and the structure of the drama outlined symmetrically. To many the double ending may be confusing, but it offers an opportunity to make one’s choice as to the efficacy of truth at any cost. Adolescents, 12 to 16 Children, 8 to 12 No; sophisticated and No without value THE GIRL OF THE LIMBERLOST * * Louise Dresser, Ralph Morgan, Marian Marsh, Henry B. Walthall, Edward Nugent, Helen J. Eddy. Adapted by Adele Comandini from the novel by Gene Stratton Porter. Direction by Christy Cabanne. Monogram Pictures Corp. The potency of the screen to carry the beauty of a story or to cheapen it through false standards, has never been more clearly emphasized than in this adaptation of Mrs. Porter’s popular novel. Her books have rarely appealed to the intelligencia, but on the other hand they have been generally considered clean, simple, sweet stories of the romantic type. To us the picture falls into the same class as the “Elsie Books,” long barred from library shelves because of their cheap sentimentalism, exaggerated emotionalism and false psychology. Those of us who read “The Girl of the Limberlost” remember the beauty of the forest, the thrilling search for exquisite moths, all the nature lore which Mrs. Porter so charmingly wove into an otherwise sentimental plot. The picture uses these only as background, and we meet face to face an unnatural mother whose cruelties are an exhibition of sadism, a child bravely facing social ostracism, and situations so crudely imagined that they lose all semblance of reality. The direction is tiresome and inartistic, and with the exception of Ralph Morgan, the entire cast lacks vitality. The story might have emphasized tolerance, perseverance, unselfishness. Actually it is emotionally morbid, and the ending, where the girl is slipping into the quicksand which killed her father, is inexcusably bad taste. We believe it might seriously affect sensitive children. Critical audiences will be bored. Adolescents, 12 to 16 Children, 8 to 12 Not recommended No — poor •w GIFT OF GAB » » Edmund Lowe, Gloria Stuart, Alice White, Paul Lukas, Douglas Montgomery, Gus Arnheim's Orchestra, Ruth Etting, Graham MacNamee, Gene Austin. Direction by Karl Freund. Universal. The hero of this piece is a noisy unquenchable, insufferable radio announcer who talks himself into oblivion and out again. The film is dull, tedious and tinny. Since there is proverbially no accounting for taste, some radio fans may be pleased to see their favorites on the screen even in this concoction. Adolescents, 12 to 16 Children, 8 to 12 No No