Motion Picture Review Digest (Jan-Dec 1936)

80 MOTION PICTURE REVIEW DIGEST LIBELED LADY — Continued has not only filled the bases, as well as the marquee, for the exhibitor, but has brought in a sockeroo of a comedy." + Variety pl8 N 4 '36 "Metro has nothing less than a knockout comedy in 'Libeled Lady.' Here is one that won't have to be wedged down exhibitors' throats. They will take it at one gulp and so will the patrons. The picture is overladen with laughs and handled in such a charmingly sophisticated manner that those exhibitors who are fortunate enough to play this one will watch the ticket sales with genuine glee. . . Capitalizing on the box office draw of Powell and Myrna Loy together, MGM has shrewdly combined them again in a film that shows them both to fine advantage. . . All in all, MGM has a till-ringer in 'Libeled Lady.' " -f Variety (Hollywood) p3 O 5 '36 LLOYDS OF LONDON. 20th century-Fox 115min N 25 '36 Cast: Freddie Bartholomew. Madeleine Carroll. Sir Guy Standing. Tyrone Power. C. Aubrey Smith Director: Henry King "The romantic commercial firm, which has bulked so large in maritime doings for two centuries, offers rich material for screen celebration. The production traces its amazing growth from 1770, when its business was transacted in Lloyd's Coffee House to its dominant position following Nelson's defeat of the French fleet. It presents side by side John Julius Angerstein, who was undoubtedly the greatest executive Lloyds ever had, and the fictional Jonathan Blake, who is supposed to have inaugurated the policy of insuring everything from an actress' legs to a king's coronation." N Y Herald Tribune Audience Suitability Ratings "The present film is a fluff ed-up spectacle with passages of stirring action and impressive dignity. Its moments of dullness are emphasized by a directorial penchant for shaking the empire at the drop of an insurance policy and very often the plot is unable to live up to the portentous atmosphere in which it is unfolded. . . The appeal of this film is for adults owing to problems neither financial nor naval." T. J. Fitzmorris -| America p240 D 12 '36 "Engrossingly interesting is this pretentious and colorful production of old London during the Napoleonic era. . . Henry King, the director merits the highest praise for the consummate skill with which he has blended the many varied elements used in this forceful drama. Another great achievement of cinematic art. Most stimulating entertainment. Family." + + Gen Fed of Women's Clubs (W Coast) N 24 '36 "One is completely transported back to the England of the late 18th century in this absorbing, interesting picture in which perfect casting of fine actors and actresses, expert direction, realistic stagecraft and lovely photography are combined to make an outstanding production. . . Excellent for the family." + + Nat Council of Jewish Women N 25 '36 "Adults." Nat Legion of Decency D 10 '36 "[It] is an impressive historical picture. That the story itself grips interest from the beginning and holds the attention to the great climax at the Battle of Trafalgar, is a tribute to adapter and director alike. . . The ethical tone of the picture is admirable. Fine ideals of loyalty, patriotism and self-sacrifice are stressed. Family, and especially recommended to students. Outstanding." + + Sel Motion Pict p3 D 1 '38 Newspaper and Magazine Reviews "[It is] comparable in power to the same studio's 'The House of Rothschild.' A stunning motion-picture, worked out in elaborate detail, it records the history of the founding of the great insurance combine. . . Curtis Kenyon, [the scenarist], worked many nights, dug down into ancient papers, long-forgotten books. . . The result: one of the biggest pictures of the year. Most of the film is factual, all of it exciting and constantly interesting. It takes its place with 'Mutiny on the Bounty' as one of the finest pictures ever to come from Hollywood. Audiences are certain to like it." + + Lit Digest p20 D 5 '36 "[It] is an impressive and sometimes stirring chronicle. . . The photoplay borrows the formula used so effectively in 'The House of Rothschild,' high lighting a documentary exposition with world-shaking events. It has less unity and dramatic urgency than its notable prototype, but it remains a vastly entertaining historical film. Acted with steady brilliance and staged with a sure eye for colorful pageantry, it is an ingenious mixture of fact and fancy, gathering momentum in its final sequences for a smashing climax." Howard Barnes + NY Herald Tribune p24 N 26 '36 "Broadway at least, however the rest of the world may feel, could start off its Thanksgiving Day with [a] loud huzzah — one for Lloyds of London.' . . [It] can step right to the head of its class. 'Lloyds of London' ... is one of those historical melodramas, with just enough fiction to make the history palatable, with just enough fact to make the romance important, that Darryl Zanuck's studio does so superbly well. . . Tyrone Power, a handsome deep-voiced young man who seems to be well along the road to stardom in this, his third picture, plays the grown-up Jonathan. Henry King has directed with his usual skill and sincerity, making his picture not only a romantic melodrama of high entertainment value, and a shrewdly disguised lesson in history, but an extraordinarily vivid and visually beautiful portrait of England in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries." Eileen Creelman + + N Y Sun p30 N 27 '36 "Twentieth Century-Fox's 'Lloyds of London' is a pleasing photoplay, crammed with authentic detail of the Georgian England where its scene is laid, reverent and restrained if occasionally original in its presentation of historical incident, and threaded by a semi-fictional story of romance and business daring. . . As the vital Jonathan Blake, Tyrone Power Jr. plays a much more varied role than any he has had previously for the screen. Where sheer action and character delineation are concerned, he is excellent. . . Henry King has endowed the production with story book clarity, sustaining interest, when the plot threatens to weigh too heavily, with bright interpolation involving the less sternly destined members of the cast." J. T. M. + NY Times p39 N 26 '36 "In 'Lloyds of London,' the amazing Darryl F. Zanuck, who also produced 'The House of Rothschild.' not only gives us a tonic and spirited film that is lively in its background and endlessly entertaining in its people, but one that has a striking parallel to certain current European events. . . Not only is Lloyds of London' lively, exciting and handsomely photographed, it is also excellently acted. Tyrone Power gives a superb performance as Blake; Madeleine Carroll is beautiful and capable as the woman he loves. . . [It is] a film enjoyable from beginning to end." William Boehnel + + N Y World-Telegram p39 N 27 '36 "I haven't a great deal of patience with that 'Lloyds of London,' which sounds so impressive. . . The opening scenes are promising, with an air of 'David Copperfield' or 'Treasure Island.' . . Tyrone Power [is] a little too personable for the rdle. Very pleasant and nice-looking and so on, he doesn't manage to suggest big business, as he is supposed to; and it's impossible + + Exceptionally Good; + Good; -\ Fair; \ Mediocre; — Poor; Exceptionally Poor