Motion Picture Review Digest (Jan-Dec 1936)

MOTION PICTURE REVIEW DIGEST 57 big way and should be a tonic for an anemic box office. Family." + Box Office pl9 S 26 '36 "Well-handled comedy-mystery with fine cast makes this a good box office offering." + Film Daily p3 S 19 '36 "This is a first-rate, lively little programmer which will drop nicely into the lower bracket of twin bills and only escapes a better rating because it is never quite definitely either melodrama or farce. . . As a hardboiled, cynical sardonic editor, Lowe turns in a top flight performance, loaded with smooth wisecracking of the kind that is right down his alley. . . Gloria Stuart creates a thoroughly acceptable heroine and Spring Byington, as her mother, wrings every laugh possible from the material given her." H Hollywood Reporter p4 S 16 '36 H Motion Pict Daily pll S 11 'Estimate: fair." H Phila Exhibitor p38 O 1 '36 '36 "If Universal had spread one more layer of gloss over 'Girl on the Front Page,' it would have had a hangup comedy film. As is. the production nearly arrives. But that margin of difference between a smoothly coated job, and one that shows a few chips, will also be the margin between big grosses and spotty intake. Especially so since the marquee weight is in that borderline class. . . [It] contains a flock of good laugh spots, many of them registering solidly, woven around an old wheel-horse of a framework." H Variety pl4 N 11 '36 "[It] is rollicking fun. Expertly scripted and directed, it has real entertainment written all over it. Universal has a comedy-romance in this one that justifies the company's pledges to exhibitors. Although a newspaper-racketeer yarn, 'The Girl on the Front Page' far and away tops them all so far." + Variety (Hollywood) p3 S 16 '36 GIVE ME YOUR HEART. Warner 88min Jl 18 '36 Cast: Kay Francis. George Brent. Roland Young. Patric Knowles. Frieda Inescort Director: Archie L. Mayo See issue of September 28, 1936 for other reviews of this film Audience Suitability Ratings "Kay Francis sulks through a good deal of the film but is good in the more emotional scenes. The first half is very slow, but when the scene shifts to America the pace quickens considerably. Quite good entertainment for those who can bear so much sentimentality. Suitability: adults & adolescents." H Mo Film Bui pl55 S 30 '36 "A difficult subject handled with admirable delicacy. Mature. Outstanding." + + Nat Bd of R M S '36 Neivspaper and Magazine Reviews "Roland Young by a brilliant performance saves this film from being just another socalled example of mother-love. . . But if Mr. Young and Miss Flint do steal the picture, it is not because either Miss Francis or Mr. Brent fail in their respective tasks. It is a case of the characters represented by the former couple being far more interesting than the central figures. . . Miss Francis's beauty has been touched upon. Her ability to act intelligently is proven once more here. As for Mr. Brent, he is alert and natural, besides being handsome." Mordaunt Hall H Boston Transcript p4 S 26 '36 "This production is easily Kay Francis' best work to date from a popular entertainment viewpoint. It is much deeper than the favorite of all Francis' fans 'One Way Passage' and 'Street of Chance,' one of her best movies, but it falls short of 'White Angel' in some respects. Xot, however, from the standpoint of popular appeal and heart interest." Laura Elston + Canadian M p45 O '36 "One picture to which I can conscientiously send you this month is 'Give Me Your Heart.' This is one written and acted for audiences over eleven years old. . . [It is] as well done as a good stage play. Kay Francis doesn't always get my vote, but she can be awfully good as a woman with a problem on her mind, if she has to. The picture, however, is really Roland Young's. . . The conversation in 'Give Me Your Heart' is intelligent first-time talk, not the sappy, repeat, picture-from-picture talk that we so frequently draw in the palace of the cinema. Xot for children." Don Herold + Life p30 N '36 "Reworked from Jay Mallory's garrulous and confused drama ... it has failed signally to give much-needed unity and accent to sorry material. The photoplay has a number of those big emotional moments that the screen contrives for tales of illicit love, but they are fragmentary interludes of power in a random production. . . It was not a felicitious piece of casting that gave Kay Francis the part. . . She plays Belinda with studious detachment, missing all of the complexities of the role. . . Her acting is made all the more spurious by the suave assurance of Mr. Young. . . He minimizes the pseudo-psychological implications of the narrative, giving a clipped, humorous and rounded impersonation that is altogether delightful." Howard Barnes h N Y Herald Tribune pl8 S 17 '36 " 'Give Me Your Heart,' belongs in the category of 'a woman's picture,' which usually means good news for the box office. The story gets off the beaten path of most scenarios and actually says something. . . The situation, rather a delicate one, is well handled both by scenarist and director. . . Archie L. Mayo, the director, has given the audience credit for some intelligence, a rare gift in a director." Eileen Creelman + NY Sun p31 S 17 '36 "[It is] an affecting, mature and sophisticated drama of mother love and applied psychiatry. . . The cast is thoroughly up to the task of bringing a basically exaggerated story to a convincing measure of credibility. Miss Francis, still amazingly gowned and handicapped by that distressing difficulty with her 'r's,' plays Belinda with pathos and reticence." F. S. Nugent + NY Times pl8 S 17 '36 "Artfully contrived to batter down vour emotions with its story of mother love, the 'film is a curious combination of sentiment, naivete and triteness that at times becomes genuinely affecting and at others downright preposterous and difficult to believe. . . I suspect that on the whole 'Give Me Your Heart' is a fairly good film, full of the stuff of which cinema successes are made and the chances are that you will enjoy it fairly well." William Boehnel H NY World-Telegram p25 S 17 '36 "Kay Francis never has nonsense around her. . . My, how she suffers! I reallv don't believe that I have the heart to tell vou about her anguish and her nobility." John Mosher New Yorker p83 S 2S '36 "[It] should prove vastly popular with better class matinee audiences. The woman's angle has been cannily handled, slush has been studiously avoided, a nice restraint is evident in all departments: it's the best vehicle Kay Francis has had since 'One Way Passage.' . . A well-deserved pat on the back to Archie Mayo who's handled a delicate theme with skill and taste, evaded Mr. Breen's edicts with subtlety and effect." Herb Sterne + Script pl2 S 26 '36 + + Exceptionally Good; + Good; -| Fair; [-Mediocre; — Poor; E xceptionafly Poor