Motion Picture Reviews (1938)

MOTION PICTURE REVIEWS Five parents. The solution evolved by Granny Jones is hilarious but possibly open to misinterpretation by the younger generation. The film is broad farce throughout, far removed from reality. Adolescents, 12 to 16 Children, 8 to 12 Funny Amusing but misleading © FLIRTING WITH FATE O O Joe E. Brown, Leo Carrillo, Beverly Roberts, Wynne Gibson, Steffi Duna, Charles Judels, Stanley Fields, Leonid Kinskey. Direction by Frank McDonald. MGM. Even the combination of Joe E. Brown and Leo Carrillo fails to save a poor story. The comedy is forced and trite, the plot a labored one in which Dan Dixon (Joe E. Brown) and his strolling vaudeville entertainers are held up by a desperado (Leo Carrillo) as they trek through South American mud. Dixon finally decides that suicide is his only means of getting help for the troupe, and the humor depends upon his macabre but unsuccessful solution. The interpolated songs are only fair, and some of the dialogue has a sophisticated flavor which is regrettable in a Joe E. Brown film. Adolescents, 12 to 16 Children, 8 to 12 No value No value © THE FRONTIERSMAN O O William Boyd, George Hayes, Russel Hayden, Evelyn Venable, William Duncan, Clara Kimball Young. Based on a story by Clarence E. Mulford. Screen play by Norman Houston and Harrison Jacobs. Direction by Lesley Selander. Paramount. Hopalong turns his talents to the cause of education and reforms small Artie, chief baiter of the crabbed school-marm and nephew of the owner of the Bar 20 Ranch. He is assisted by a sweetly pretty new school teacher who trains the children to perfection but innocently becomes involved with the leader of a band of cattle rustlers, who must in the course of the plot be overthrown by the redoubtable Cassidy. Voices of the St. Brendan’s choir lend a pleasant if somewhat improbable note to the film, and the usual shrewd direction and good photography add up the total result for another good Western of the series. Adolescents, 12 to 16 Children, 8 to 12 Entertaining Probably © HARD TO GET O O Dick Powell, Olivia de Havilland, Charles Winninger, Allen Jenkins, Bonita Granville. From an original story by Wally Klein and Joseph Schrank. Screen play by Jerry Wald, Maurice Leo and Richard Macaulay. Direction by Ray Enright. Warner Bros. An amusing satire on the times is always acceptable. Through this medium, everyone should be familiar by now with the strange eccentricities of capitalists and their families. The capitalists in this film seem to hover somewhere between sanity and dementia and everyone seems to be having a mental tug of war with everyone else, including the proletariat, until finally a bright young man with a strong jaw straightens out everything to a semblance of normalcy. All of which, put in other words, means that a spoiled daughter of the rich tries to charge gasoline at a station where she is not known. The attendant, believing her to be a deadbeat, makes her work out her debt by cleaning tourist cottages. She plans a revenge on him which backfires and involves her affections. Dick Powell's presence does not make this a musical. He sings two songs though, and the film would have gone along just as well without them. Adolescents, 12 to 16 Children, 8 to 12 Entertaining Yes © ILLEGAL TRAFFIC O O J. Carrol Naish, Mary Carlisle, Robert Preston, Judith Barrett. Original story and screen play by Robert Yost, Lewis Foster and Stuart Anthony. Direction by Louis King. Paramount. A company which specializes in the hasty transportation of criminals from the scenes of their crimes to safety, becomes the object of suspicion by police. A federal agent ingeniously attaches himself to the gang, discovers their methods of operations and eliminates their leader. This is a harrowing tale of desperate criminals in search of a haven of security. It is typical of stories one finds in cheap detective magazines and follows the “penny dreadful” technique to the last bullet. The subject matter is decidedly mediocre but pictures of this type probably have a box-office total in direct proportion to the sales of pulp magazines . Adolescents, 12 to 16 Children, 8 to 12 No No © THE INSIDE STORY O O Michael Whalen, Jean Rogers, Chick Chandler, Douglas Fowley, John King, Jane Darwell. Based on a story by Ben Ames Williams. Screen play by Jerry Cady. Direction by Ricardo Cortez. 20th Century-Fox. Barney, a newspaper man, writes a human interest story about the loneliest man in New York (himself) who wishes to spend Christmas in the country with the loneliest woman (a night club singer). Not a bad idea to begin with, it soon develops that June White has all sorts of unsavory connections with people who have such unpleasant, notions as chloroforming her and dropping her in the river, and in no time at all the picture becomes a rousing melodrama. The plot is