Motion Picture Review Digest (Jan-Dec 1937)

52 MOTION PICTURE REVIEW DIGEST THE GREAT GARRICK— Continued boldly, richly, unabashedly an excuse for Mr. Aherne's gallant play-acting. That is enough for me." F. S. Nugent + + N Y Times p22 O 25 *37 "Mervyn LeRoy has produced an altogether delightful piece of entertainment in 'The Great Garrick.' . . The film is a smart, amusing satire that is well worth seeing." William Boehnel -j + N Y World-Telegram plO O 25 '37 "[It] seemed to me as spontaneous as an Elsa Maxwell costume party, but there is a neatness and nice good humor which makes it agreeable. . . It is a little bit like one of those big, unwieldy practical jokes people work up, but it is brightly enough managed, and the joke isn't on us customers." John Mosher H New Yorker pl09 O 30 '37 "The farce is refreshing — if not entirely successful— and allows Brian Aherne an actor's field day in the title role." -\ Newsweek p23 N 8 '37 "Who says there aren't any new stories? Well, Ernest Vajda thought up a peach for the latest Great Personality picture. . . He has built one of the best stories the screen has ever produced." Rob Wagner + + Script p8 N 13 '37 "The plot is for the most part motionless, a fault not corrected by heavy camera work. The acting, in the cases of Mr. Aherne, Edward Everett Horton and Etienne Girardot, is splendid. The rest of the cast is tiresomely overanimated. It is a strong dose of grand manners." -\ Stage p28 N '37 "Garrick might have enjoyed this modernization. He would certainly have advised some rewriting in the interest of pace." + Time p44 N 1 '37 Trade Paper Reviews "Warner hereby adds another to its list of pictures whose prestige will be greater than its profits. Intelligent first-run audiences will applaud the magnificent production, superb cast and sophisticated screenplay, but the costume element — laid, as it is, in early 18th century England and France — will make its reception by the general run of theatregoers less satisfactory. Family." Boxoffice p21 O 9 '37 "Here is another romantic comedy, or farce, but this time in costume, which despite the opinion of some, does not take away from the entertainment of the picture, in any way. . . It would be advisable for exhibitors to advertise the times at which the picture commences, and to caution patrons to be there at the beginning, for it is a picture that will completely baffle anyone coming in the middle of it." + Canadian Moving Pict Digest p6 N 6 '37 "[It] is a delightful romantic comedy, cleverly directed by James Whale and brilliantly acted by a cast headed by Brian Aherne, in the title role, and beautiful Olivia De Havilland." + Film Daily p8 S 28 '37 + Motion Pict Daily p4 S 27 '37 "Here is a class production aimed to attract mass appeal. Good period comedy, it can be sold to all classes if sufficiently exploited. Estimate: excellent satirical comedy." + Phila Exhibitor p24 O 1 '37 "[It] is a marked departure from the current run of Hollywood product and a film which will stimulate critical discussion. . . 'The Great Garrick' is a film worth the exacting effort which unquestionably was required in its making. Artistically, first class; commercially, a question mark." Variety pl4 S 29 '37 " 'The Great Garrick' will be a hit show for cultivated audiences and those even remotely interested in the theatre and a fabulous figure of the theatre. Whether the life of Garrick, as Here suggested in a romantic comedy, is, however, sufficiently interesting to the mobs to create the talk and excitement that will spell big box office is problematical." Variety (Hollywood) p3 S 25 '37 GREEN FIELDS. Collective film 105min O 11 '37 Cast: Michael Goldstein. Helen Beverley. Isadore Cashier. Anna Appel Directors: Jacob Ben-Ami. Edgar G. Ulmer Music: Vladimir Heifetz Based on the play of same title by Perez Hirshbein. This is the first Yiddish dialogue film with English subtitles produced by the Collective Film Producers. "It takes si pious young Talmudist out of the synagogue and sets him down in a country village, where the peasants fight over him and he finally succumbs to the pull of farming and the earth." (N Y Herald Tribune) Newspaper and Magazine Reviews "The English sub-titles will be found inadequate by persons unfamiliar with Yiddish." Jesse Zunser Cue p45 O 23 '37 "Little film sense has been employed. [The cast members] are ill at ease in the motion picture medium. There is rarely any fluency to the action, while the players stand, shouting and gesticulating at each other, apparently unaware of the photoplay's enormous exaggeration of acting tricks." Howard Barnes — NY Herald Tribune p25 O 12 '37 "It is a pastoral tale, a simple and refreshingly wholesome story. . . Much too long for so slight a dramatic foundation, the picture has a cheerful theme, a pleasant atmosphere and several amusing scenes. . . The dialogue needs cutting badly, as the camera often centers upon a pair of conversationalists for several minutes. Editing might give the film a dramatic quality it now lacks." Eileen Creelman -| NY Sun pl3 O 12 '37 "It goes on for something like two and a fraction hours, which is altogether too long, and it betrays Jacob Ben-Ami's stage-bound direction with its incessant grouping of its characters for conversational thrusts and parries. . . The picture unquestionably would have profited by having a different leading man." F. S. Nugent — + N Y Times p31 O 12 '37 "It marks a new high in vernacular art. . . The work abounds in those elements which go to make up a first rate Yiddish film. . . It is entertainment that should pack them in at the Esquire." L. B. + + N Y World-Telegram pl3 O 12 '37 Trade Paper Reviews "Here is an outstanding production that will find wide appeal outside of the Jewish race. For the latter it is of course a picture they cannot afford to miss, as it is the first Jewish film based upon an internationally known work of art." + Film Daily p6 O 20 '37 + Motion Pict Daily pl3 O 15 '37 "This is entertaining — thoroughly entertaining. It has the Jewish Art Theatre, the Artef players. They achieve a triumph of acting." + Phila Exhibitor p37 N 1 '37 "This could have been a better picture with backgrounds which would have authenticated properly the locale of the story. . . It is almost without humor and it is rigid in its lack of action. Nevertheless, Yiddish-speaking audiences should cultivate this attraction." -| Variety pl8 O 27 '37 + + Exceptionally Good; + Good; H Fair; H Mediocre; —Poor; Exceptionally Poor