Motion Picture Review Digest (Jan-Dec 1937)

46 MOTION PICTURE REVIEW DIGEST FIRST LADY— Continued "The movie version has retained most of the play's clever dialogue. Perhaps too much of it, for the cinema is best suited to shifts of scene and action rather than to lengthy conversations. . . If Kay Francis finds the pace a little too much for her, others in the cast make up for her slow-footedness." H Scholastic pl9e D 11 '37 "Outstanding. Mature. Best of the month." -f + Sel Motion Pict p3 O 1 '37 "The comedy is mostly conversational, but bright and sometimes sharp, and a fine cast puts it over. Mature. Outstanding." + + Wkly Guide D 4 '37 Newspaper and Magazine Reviews "[It] is rather like a new straw sailor after a heavy April shower. Verree Teasdale, Walter Connolly and a few others demonstrate how this sort of thing should be played but Kay Francis, for all her Orry-Kelly finery, doesn't catch the idea. There are of course amusing moments. Adults and young people." h Christian Science Monitor pl7 D 4 *37 "By no ordinary motion picture standards can this one be judged. It talks every inch of the way across the screen and depends upon the camera as a storytelling aid only to the extent a publisher depends upon an artist who is given a book to illustrate. . . Exceedingly smart in appearance, beautifully mounted by "Warners, dialogue with snap and sparkle, a cast seldom equaled for even excellence, it is as fine an example of the straight talkie as you will find on the screen this season." + + Hollywood Spec pl8 S 11 '37 "You will like both Kay Francis and Verree Teasdale as the political rivals." (3 stars) Beverly Hills Liberty p51 N 6 '37 "Sparkling dialogue, amusing situations, and swell acting had the previewers squealing with delight. . . A lively play up to the minute." Rob Wagner + + Script pl3 D 11 '37 "Great chunks of the slick dialogue which Katharine Dayton and George S. Kaufman whipped up for the stage play remain, making it a rather talky motion picture. Amusing backstage in Washington." Stage pl9 O '37 " 'First Lady' is carried off with an unusual vivacity by Kay Francis. Its main drawback — that, as in most Kaufman plays, its crises are epigrammatic rather than emotional — is counteracted by its novel background and its general impudence." + Time p24 D 13 '37 Trade Paper Revieivs "It will have to be sold through every possible angle to get it over with the mass. Estimate: good class offering." H Phila Exhibitor pl6 S 15 '37 "Swiftly carried along . . . 'First Lady' emerges as topnotch entertainment." + Variety (Hollywood) p3 Ag 31 '37 FIT FOR A KING. RKO 73mm O 15 '37 Cast: Joe E. Brown. Helen Mack. Paul Kelly. Harry Davenport Director: Edward Sedgwick Original story: Richard Flournoy "Story has Joe E. Brown as a newspaper copy boy, striving to become a reporter on his uncle's paper, but nixed by the short-tempered editor. Finally gets an assignment to cover the sailing of an aged Archduke and stows away on the boat to get the yarn. He and a rival reporter compete in a hectic scramble after the nobleman." Variety Audience Suitability Ratings "This is for the family circle." T. J. Fitzmorris + America p96 O 30 '37 "Another hilarious comedy for Joe E. Brown, clean fun in slapstick manner. Family." Am Legion Auxiliary "[It is] an ideal vehicle for a Joe E. Brown comedy. The picture is attractively set, the direction workmanlike, and the acting excellent. Family." Calif Cong of Par & Teachers "Good. Family." DAR "It is a rather unsatisfactory combination of plotting and intrigue but the comedy is good clean fun and there is not a dull moment. Family." E Coast Preview Committee "Hilarious slapstick comedy, amusing in spots but not up to some of the comedian's earlier hits. Family." Nat Soc of New England Women "Better production, less overdrawn than former starring roles of the comedian. Family." S Calif Council of Fed Church Women Fox W Coast Bui O 23 '37 "Family. Very entertaining for the fans of this popular comedian." + Gen Fed of Women's Clubs (W Coast) O 13 '37 "Even the exciting chase at the end is not omitted and it is all grand fun. Adolescents, 12-16: very amusing; children, 8-12: very funny." + Motion Pict R p6 O '37 "General patronage." Nat Legion of Decency O 14 '37 "A, Y & C: good." Parents' M pl04 N '37 "Family." Sel Motion Pict p8 N 1 '37 Newspaper and Magazine Reviews "Family." Christian Science Monitor pl7 O 16 '37 "Joe E. Brown, America's ace yodeler and rubber-face, slips a bit in his latest comedy. In fact, you can hardly call it a comedy, since 'Fit for a King' is little more than a succession of gags — not always successful." Jesse Zunser 1 Cue p43 O 23 '37 "It is naive stuff, but good clean fun, is this buffoonery, and the [children] will like it. Apparently many adults will too, for the reaction of the preview audience was one of high amusement and frequent excitement." Bert Harlen + Hollywood Spec pl3 O 2 '37 "By a breakdown of all directoral resources . . . slapstick could conceivably go farther than it does in 'Fit for a King,' but it seems hardly possible that it could fare worse. A distressing mixture of what, in fact, appears to be essentially undirected cavorting, saved only in spots by the pantomimic genius of Joe E. Brown, it makes no attempt at characterization." B. R. C. — NY Times pl8 O 15 '37 "Most of the familiar ingredients of slapstick farce are to be found in Joe E. Brown's new picture. However, it must be admitted that some of them are funny and so the film has its chucklesome moments. But not enough to lift it out of the ordinary class." William Boehnel r N Y World-Telegram p5 O 16 '37 "Fit for Joe E. Brown fans only, and even then with reservations." h Newsweek p28 O 11 '37 "[It] places Joe E. Brown, his great mouth and banshee yawp in the newspaper business, to the patent disadvantage of all concerned." — Time p27 O 25 '37 + -j Exceptionally Good; -f Good; -\ Fair; J Mediocre; — Poor; Exceptionally Poor