Motion Picture Reviews (1938)

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Four MOTION PICTURE REVIEWS because of their familiarity with the older music, the costumes and change in thought, taste and customs during the past twenty years. It is novel and very entertaining. Adolescents, 12 to 16 Children, 8 to 12 Sophisticated Too long and too mature AIR DEVILS O O Larry Blake, Dick Purcell, Beryl Wallace, Mamo Clark, Charles Brokaw, Minerva Urecal. Original story by Harold Buckley. Screen play by Harold Buckley and George Waggner. Direction by John Rawlins. Uni versal. Rivalry between two wisecracking aviators who vie with each other for promotion and the affections of a girl, the life of the United States Constabulary on an island in the South Seas, and encounters with natives, are the ingredients of this picture. It is only a fair program filler. Adolescents, 12 to 16 Children, 8 to 12 Passable No BLIND ALIBI O O Richard Dix, Whitney Bourne, Eduardo Cionelli, Frances Mercer, Ace, the Wonder Dog. Story by William Joyce Cowan. Screen play by Lionel Houser, Harry Segall, Ron Ferguson. Direction by Lew Landers. R.K.O. The skill and intelligence of the Seeing Eye dogs, who are used to lead the blind, are exemplified in this story of Ace and his master. Although the man, Paul Dover, is merely simulating blindness in order to gain possession of a packet of letters which are the basis of a blackmail scheme against his sister, the efficiency of these beautiful dogs in caring for the afflicted is emphasized more than would be possible in a purely educational film. The mystery is not unusual but it is well treated. Richard Dix is good; however, no human being in the cast can compete with Ace for the sympathy of the audience. Adolescents, 12 to 16 Children, 8 to 12 Good Somewhat mature. Not for the sensitive © COCOANUT GROVE O O Fred MacMurray, Harriet Hilliard, the Yacht Club Boys, Ben Blue, Eve Arden, Billy Lee, Rufe Davis, Harry Owens. Original story and screen play by Sy Bartlett and Olive Cooper. Direction by Alfred Santell. Paramount. There have been so many mediocre pictures featuring orchestras that it is a pleasant surprise to find one that is human and funny and natural from beginning to end. Perhaps it is because none of the characters are glorified; they are just ordinary people having a run of hard luck, able to laugh at their misfortunes and yet smart enough and talented enough to take advantage of opportunities when they come. When the story begins, the band, under the leadership of Jimmy Prentice (Fred MacMurray), come into Chicago on an excursion boat on which they have been playing. Summarily dismissed by the captain, they take the blow with shoulder shrugs, decide by any means available to reach Los Angeles for try-outs at the Cocoanut Grove. Meanwhile they have added a young girl to their company as governess for the diminutive and adorable Half-Pint (Billy Lee), who was left one day checked with the hats and annexed by the good-hearted band. The journey to California is a series of absurd and entertaining adventures, and the final scenes in the Cocoanut Grove have the mellow atmosphere and the sophisticated urbanity of that world-renowned supper club. The orchestra, with Harry Owens, is excellent. Perhaps the floor show is rowdier than is customary in the Grove, but the Yacht Club Boys have been toned down, Rufe Davis has been polished up and Ben Blue and Eve Arden, in their awkward dance routine, will seem funny to most people. Throughout the film the specialty acts and the songs, some of which are due to be favorites, are not obvious interpolations but a natural phase of the picture. Adolescents, 12 to 16 Children, 8 to 12 Entertaining Probably mature © CRIME SCHOOL O O Humphrey Bogart, Gale Page, Billy Halop, Bobby Jordan, Huntz Hall, Leo Gorcey, Barnard Punsley, Gabriel Dell, George Offerman, Jr. Screen play by Crane Wilbur and Vincent Sherman. From a story by Crane Wilbur. Direction by Lewis Seiler. Warner Bros. Since publicity for “Crime School” refers to the boy actors as the “Dead End Kids,” comparison between the two pictures seems to be invited. In the opening scenes the likeness is marked, for we see the gang of slum boys in the same miserable surroundings, heading for certain moral and spiritual destruction. Here the similarity ends. The boys are sent to a reform school, the evils of which are presented in such extreme terms that the audience is neither entertained nor enlightened. The plot is a composite of a number of prison melodramas, using as motivating forces the old devices of a romance between the head of the school and the sister of one of the boys, and the enmity of the former superintendent for the new administration. If aimed at existing abuses in reform schools, the picture so far overshoots the mark that it is likely to be regarded as gross exaggeration rather than as a well-considered effort to present a social problem. Adolescents, 12 to 16 Children, 8 to 12 No — too brutal and No ethically confusing