Motion Picture Reviews (1938)

MOTION PICTURE REVIEWS Seven TOO HOT TO HANDLE O O Clark Gable, Myrna Loy, Walter Pidgeon, Walter Connolly, Leo Carillo. Screen play by Lawrence Stallings and John Lee Mahin. Based on story by Len Hammond. Direction by Jack Conway. M. G. M. “To Hot To Handle” is certainly entertaining if you like thrill upon thrill. It is not a significant contribution. It does not fall into the class with “Test Pilot” in which Clark Gable and Myrna Loy recently appeared, but interest never lags. The picture is melodrama from first to last. It is like an old-fashioned serial, chapter after chapter, each more exciting than the last. It purports to picture the adventures of news-reel reporters in China amidst bombing warfare, airplane crashes and blazing rescues; in America, flying over an exploding munitions ship; in Dutch Guiana among savage tribes from whom they miraculously escape. But film technique is employed to perfection, giving us our money’s worth of vicarious adventure, and no one can call it dull! The cast is excellent, with special praise for Clark Gable, Myrna Loy, Walter Pidgeon, and Walter Connolly. Adolescents, 12 to 16 Children, 8 to 12 Thrilling as fictional Very exciting adventure (£• THE SISTERS O O Errol Flynn, Bette Davis, Anita Louise, Ian Hunter, Donald Crisp, Beulah Bondi, Jane Bryan, Alan Hale, Lea Patrick, Laura Hope Crews, Janet Shaw. From the novel by Myron Brinig. Screen play by Milton Krims. Direction by Anatole Litvak. Warner Bros. Warner Bros. In a time when family solidarity is apparently the one great security on which to pin one’s faith, motion pictures have given us a number of worthwhile illustrations. The theme of “Sisters” attempts to show the tie which bound three girls, different in their characteristics and ambitions but intimately close in their affection and in their understanding of each other. Unfortunately the picture becomes simply the love story of one. Most footage is given Louise, the eldest, whose belief in herself and faith in another’s powers of accomplishment find tragic disappointment in her marriage to a lovable wastrel. Errol Flynn is cast as a moody newspaper reporter whose indolence, love of wandering and taste for liquor cause heartbreak and defeat. Mr. Flynn is palpably miscast, and Miss Davis rarely rises to the dramatic heights with which we connect her name because of past performances, although she is always competent. The story has been popular with the reading pub lic, and yet to many the book lacked the unity and strength which would indicate greatness. In the cinema version the incidents which mould the lives of the other two sisters are too casually sketched to seem in any way significant or real, and the ending, differing from the novel, leaves the spectator in no way convinced that happiness is assured to any of the girls. Credit is due to Laura Hope Crews, for her short role stands out as a brilliant achievement. Adolescents, 12 to 16 Children, 8 to 12 Little interest No interest Si SHARPSHOOTERS O O Brian Donlevy, Lynn Bari, Wally Vernon, John King, Douglas Dumbrille, C. Henry Gordon, Martin Joseph Spellman, Jr. Story by Maurice Rapf and Lester Ziffren. Screen play by Robert Ellis and Helen Logan. Direction by James Tinling. 20th CenturyFox. American news-reel photographers find intrigue and revolution in the Balkans. Bullets fall like hail, assassinations are the order of the day, but the camera grinds on, and while Steve Mitchell, the newsman, keeps faith with his employer, he also finds time to rescue the boy-king, dabble in romance with the royal governess and restore peace and prosperity to the realm. Such a noisy, frantic picture with the leading parts overplayed, often lacking in dignity and a sense of fitness, has little to offer. One receives the impression that it has been hastily thrown together. Adolescents, 12 to 16 Children, 8 to 1 2 No No © SONS OF THE LEGION O O Donald O'Connor, Billy Lee, Billy Cook, Evelyn Keyes, Elizabeth Patterson, Tim Holt, Lynne Overman, William Frawley. Original story and screen play by Lillie Hayward, Lewis Foster and Robert F. McGowan. Direction by James Hogan. Paramount. The appeal of this film lies in the group of clean-faced, shining-eyed youngsters such as Billy Lee and Billy Cook. Equally engaging, if unkempt, is Donald O’Connor as a guttersnipe who reforms. His slang version of the story of David and Goliath is a gem. The picture contains a good deal of propaganda for an organization of sons of American Legion members, showing their patriotism, comradeship and assistance to the less fortunate in life. There is a less pleasant side of the story when we see these mere babes parading around in uniform just as they do in Mussolini’s Italy, and when we see them careening over the roads in an automobile at breakneck speed in pursuit of a murderous convict. Adolescents, 12 to 16 Children, 8 to 12 Passable Bad ideas as well as good