Movie mirror. (1932)

MURDER BY THE CLOCK ( Paramount ) A wealthy old woman is strangled in her own home after she disinherits her idiot son. Murder follows murder. The atmosphere of terror is skilfully maintained. Lilyan Tashman isn't well cast, however. Irving Pichel as the idiot gives a horribly compelling per¬ formance. Top-notch thriller. You’ll get the shivers. ☆ NEVER THE TWAIN SHALL MEET ( M-G-M) Leslie Howard and Conchita Montenegro give fine performances in a trite South Sea Island story of the white boy who goes native. The photography is good, the picture fair. ☆ y NEWLY RICH ( Paramount ) Amusing satire on Hollywood child stars and fond mamas, which turns into tense melodrama at the end. Grand perform¬ ances by Mitzi Green, Jackie Searl, Bruce Line, and Edna May Oliver. This is a good picture, which could have been great if it weren’t really two separate pictures — one a child story and the other a satire on Hollywood. ☆ NIGHT ANGEL, THE ( Paramount ) Weak story made still more unreal by setting it in Czecho¬ slovakia. Nancy Carroll’s performance is good at times, until she overacts. The good points of the picture are excellent photography and a fine perform¬ ance by Alison Skipworth. Even Fredric March can’t bring conviction to the story, which is all about a vice crusader who falls in love with a girl whose mother he had prosecuted. ☆ y NIGHT NURSE ( Warners ) You'll love Barbara Stanwyck as a night nurse who pits her wits against a physician and a chauffeur who are deliberately starv¬ ing two children to death. Ben Lyon is simply de¬ lightful as a friendly bootlegger. Clark Gable is forced to play a conventional and unbelievable villain. ☆ y PALMY DAYS ( United Arttsls) If you can imagine Parker House rolls being made by September Morns, you get a faint idea of what Eddie Cantor's new picture is like. It’s easily funnier and better than “Whoopee.’’ It'll probably bring musical films back to the screen. ☆ PARTY HUSBAND (First National) Dorothy Mackaill and James Rennie in a commonplace story of modern marriage. A young couple plan to allow each other a great deal of freedom, but it doesn’t work out. The girl's mother saves the marriage from going to pieces. ☆ PERSONAL MAID ( Paramount ) Though Nancy Carroll doesn’t overact the way she did in “The Night Angel,” this is just an average picture. It presents her as an Irish girl from the slums who becomes a personal maid to a wealthy woman and her family. She makes a man out of the woman’s weak, spoiled son, who discovers that Nancy is pure plati¬ num while his family, in spite of its riches, is just nickel-plate. All the characters in the picture are highly exaggerated, to the point where they become pure caricature. Gene Raymond as the hero is too spoiled for words at the beginning, and too noble for words at the end. ☆ </ PHANTOM OF PARIS, THE (M-G-M) Form¬ erly titled "Cheri-Bibi." John Gilbert’s best talking picture. He acts as well as he did in "Gentleman’s Fate” and he has a better story. His voice is good. So is his make-up. He makes his comeback not as a great lover, but as a splendid actor. Cheri-Bibi is a magician accused of the murder of the father of the girl he loves. To escape the death penalty, he has his features remolded by a surgeon and assumes the identity of another man. See this and be convinced that John Gilbert has made good in talkies. ☆ y POLITICS (M-G-M) Take some conventional Dressler-Moran slapstick; add a good measure of drama; season with more than a dash of “Lysistrata.” and you have "Politics,” the best picture Polly Moran and Marie Dressier have ever made together. Don't miss the last line of the picture! It’s a darb! ☆ PUBLIC DEFENDER, THE (Radio) A slightly better than fair drama about a man who steps outside the law in order to punish some men responsible for the failure of a banking company and a frame-up against an innocent man. Richard Dix plays the part of this modern Robin Hood. Light and entertaining, it hardly offers strong dramatic opportunities for Dix. ☆ yy PUBLIC ENEMY, THE (Warners) Along with “Little Caesar” one of the most powerful gang¬ ster pictures ever produced. \ ou 11 gasp at its realism. It shows a bunch of gangsters as the rats they actually are. from their childhood days to the ultimate reckoning. James Cagney gives a wonderfully authentic performance. And the nightmare ending is something you’ll never forget. ☆ QUICK MILLIONS (Fox) A fair gangster picture with trick photography. Spencer Tracy gives a good performance as a truck driver who decides to earn quick millions with the help of a machine gun. Sally Eilers and Marguerite Churchill are also in the cast. ☆ REBOUND (RKO-Pathe) For those who like sophistication and witty dialogue. It will probably be better liked in the big cities than in the small towns. It's smart; it’s flip; it’s something of a tour de force. But because of its very smartness, it presents Ina Claire and the rest of the cast as people you may or may not like. At any rate, Ina Claire’s acting is splendid as a modern young woman trying to hold the love of her husband, who married her on the rebound. ☆ SECRET CALL, THE (Paramount) A fairly good picture notable chiefly for the debut of Peggy Shannon. During most of the picture she’s just another attractive young woman. In one or two tense dramatic scenes she shows that she can be sensationally good. The story's not so much of a muchness — about a girl whose father has been framed as a grafter and who swears vengeance upon the political boss who framed him. But she’s in love with his son (Richard Arlen). Will love or hate conquer? ☆ y' SECRET SIX, THE (M-G-M) The secret six are not a bunch of gangsters, as you might imagine. They’re the men who are leagued against the gang¬ sters. This has a great cast, with Wallace Beery, Clark Gable, and Lewis Stone turning in highpowered performances, in unusual roles. Wallace Beery plays a yellow killer, Clark Gable a newspaper reporter, and Lewis Stone a crooked lawyer. Marjorie Rambeau, Johnny Mack Brown and Jean Harlow also help make this an exciting picture. ☆ y' SECRETS OF A SECRETARY (Paramount) Fast moving melodrama about a society gal who becomes a social secretary when her father leaves her penniless. Claudette Colbert is very beautiful and appealing in this r61e. Georges Metaxa looks like the gigolo type, all right, all right, but wasn't he supposed to have a lot of charm? Herbert Mar¬ shall has loads more. Betty Lawford of the stage, while not at all pretty-pretty, makes her rdle as a spoiled society girl stand out. ☆ y SEED ( Universal) You'll be deeply touched by this story of a woman who loses her husband to an¬ other woman, and brings up her children by herself, until the day when her husband returns to see them and offers them opportunities she cannot give them. The whole cast is splendid. Lois Wilson as the deserted mother gives the most poignant performance of all. John Boles acts with pleasant ease. The child actors are grand and will make you smile through your tears. Women especially will love this. ☆ SHERLOCK HOLMES’ FATAL HOUR (Twickenham) This is a British production which is extremely well acted by Arthur Wontner in the title rdle. It’s the story of his encounter with his most dangerous enemy. Col. Moriarity, in an empty house. A fairly good picture, though a little old-fashioned. ☆ y' SIDEWALKS OF NEW YORK (M-G-M) One of Buster Keaton’s best performances makes this a whale of a comedy. It’s about a wealthy tenement owner who gets into all sorts of ludicrous situations because of his love for a girl of the tenements. Anita Page is swell as the hard little moll. It's all good old slapstick — 99.44 percent laughs. ☆ SILENCE (Paramount) Can you imagine Clive Brook as a cad, a confidence man, a gray-haired con¬ vict condemned to die? That’s his rdle in "Silence,” a fairish drama, which is too choppy and disjointed to be really good. Peggy Shannon is just another pretty girl in this picture, although undoubtedly she has more to give to the screen than her rdle permits. ☆ SIX CYLINDER LOVE (Fox) Fair to middling farce about a couple of newlyweds who can’t live within their means. It’s a remake of an old picture with new lines to pep it up. Spencer Tracy, Sidney Fox, Una Merkel and Edward Everett Horton are the farceurs. ☆ y SMART MONEY (Warners) Edward G. Robin¬ son gives a perfectly grand performance in this story of a small town gambler who becomes a big shot and is ruined by his weakness for blondes. Robinson’s performance is as good as it was in “Little Caesar” and the story’s within a shade of being as highpowered. You’ll like James Cagney, tco, in a minor rdle. ■'* ☆ y' SMILING LIEUTENANT, THE (Paramount) Sophisticated, brilliant, somewhat reminiscent of "The Love Parade," though naughtier. Chevalier gives his best performance since “The Love Parade" as a dashing lieutenant whom two women love. Claudette Colbert gives a very touching performance. But it’s Miriam Hopkins over whom you’ll rave 1 ☆ SON OF INDIA (M-G-M) This isn’t the right kind of rdle for Ramon Navarro. Though he looks the part of a bronzed son of India, the character he has to play is too naive to be really romantic. The settings are beautiful, the story fantastic. It’s all about an Indian merchant prince who renounces the white girl he loves to repay a debt of gratitude to her brother. Madge Evans, once a child star, comes back as sweet as ever. The picture’s a feast for the eye. That’s all we can give it. ☆ SPIDER, THE (Fox) Exciting mystery melo¬ drama, which has its moments of silliness. The sleight of hand tricks shown at the beginning of the picture are interesting. Edmund Lowe seems miscast, how¬ ever. as a stage magician who stages a stance in order to discover a murderer who comitted his crime in the crowded theatre. It’s fairly good entertainment at that. ☆ y SPORTING BLOOD (M-G-M) The best horse racing picture in many a mcon. It’s really the life history of a horse and of how he is treated by human beings, directed with a sense of real drama. You’ll like Madge Evans as the girl who fights against a crooked gambling ring. Though the picture is grand, Clark Gable fans will be sorry that Gable doesn’t appear until half-way through the picture. ☆ ^ SQUAWMAN. THE (M-G-M) A good audience picture, with Warner Baxter as the Englishman who marries an American Indian girl, and thus cuts him¬ self off forever from his own people. With very few lines to speak, Lupe Velez gives one of the best per¬ formances of her career. She’ll make you cry. ☆ ^ y STAR WITNESS, THE (Warners) This pre¬ sents a new angle on the gangster problem — the ter¬ rorized witness who dare not testify about the mur¬ der he witnessed. In this case, a whole family — just an average family — happened to see the crime, and is threatened with death if any member of the family testifies. Chic Sale, as a patriotic Civil War veteran, is the central character of the picture. Walter Huston plays his part with quiet restraint. Frances Starr gives a heart-rending performance. The children in the picture are adorable. ☆ yy STREET SCENE ( United Artists) A shuddery symphony of tenement life, magnificently directed by King Vidor. It’s almost too fiercely true to life to have universal appeal. It's a marvelous picture, nevertheless, even better than the play. Sylvia Sidney and Buster Collier are grand. Estelle Taylor seems miscast as a woman hungry for love and under¬ standing. The picture, however, is bigger than any of the players. ☆ SUBWAY EXPRESS ( Columbia ) Fairish mys¬ tery' melodrama about a murder that takes place on a subway train. If you know anything about the New York subway system, you’ll notice mistakes in details. The story's exciting at times, and Jack Holt does good work as the police inspector who solves the mystery. 98