Movie mirror. (1933)

Laughing at Life (Mascot) you’ll See: Victor McLaglen, Regis Toomey, Conchita Montenegro, William Boyd, Ivan Lebedcff, Frankie Darro, Ruth Hall, Noah Beery, Henry B. Walthall, Lois Wil¬ son. It’s About: The doings of an adventure¬ some engineer, within and "without the lazv, zvith and zvithout women . . . Because (as you can see from the cast) it has a lot of more-than-customarilyclever character players, this picture man¬ ages to pack a good share of entertain¬ ment. As “indies” go, it’s good. It depends for its kick on the thrills and suspense of a series of episodes from the life of the engineer — McLaglen — who has to have excitement, though it costs him his home. Too, there’s a sort of sez-me-saysyou sequence between McLaglen and Boyd over Conchita. And there are flashes of comedy to temper the edge of the drama. Your Reviewer Says : All right, if you don’t expect TOO much. For Children : Rather torrid in spots. Soldiers of the Storm (Columbia) you’ll See: Regis Toomey, Anita Page, Barbara Weeks, Bob Ellis, Wheeler Oakman, others. It’s About: Border smuggling and hozv the border patrol, aground and in the air, meets it, with love-interest added. To make this story of the clever border policeman better, he (Toomey) also acts as a stunt-flyer to hide his real activities. He falls in love with a big-shot racketeer, gets all tangled up in love and duty. Add some murders, some trick flying, some dirty work, and the hero’s making good — and by the time it’s all over, a mile or more of film has been used up. Your Reviewer Says : Anyway, lots of movement. For Children : As thrill-stuff, let ’em see it. She Had to Say Yes (Warner Bros.) you’ll See: Loretta Young, Lyle Talbot, Winnie Lightncr, Hugh Herbert, Helen Ware , Regis Toomey. It’s About: The cloak-and-suit girls ivlio “entertain” the out-of-tozcm buyers. Warners made this some time ago. Then they looked at it, didn’t think so much of it, hid it on a shelf, tried to forget it. Now they’ve dragged it out again, re¬ leased it. Too bad! Loretta (who’ll be done no good by this Add Norman Foster’s name to the list of realism-haters. They made him shave his pretty wavy black hair away atop his head, so he’d look more like Mayor Anton Cermak, in the movie based on the assas¬ sinated mayor’s career. Another chartermember : David Manners. Dave had to have his hair permanent-waved for “The Warrior’s Husband!” Traffic-Cop Earl Reed, whose post is the busiest intersection in Hollywood, Movies of the Month film) is a pretty girl who has to be nice to the playboys who do business with her boss. In the end, she finds that the man she trusted is a dirty so-and-so, and the man she mistrusted is the real goods after all. In the meantime, there’s a lot of sexy stuff that doesn’t taste good. Your Reviewer Says: Just let it pass. For Children : N O ! ! Thunder Over Mexico (Sol Lesser) you'll See: A cast of native Mexicans. It’s About: Mexico’s revolt against the old peonage system, told in the narration of one grisly incident. Here, come to the screen for you to see at last, is the final outcome of Rus¬ sian Director Serge Eisenstein’s muchpublicized trip into Mexico with a movie camera and some amazing ideas. The trip that resulted in him and his film being held weeks at the American border. This film had communists and Eisenstein’s backers at each other’s throats, because the former said the latter were emasculating Eisenstein’s work. Well, it was all a tempest in a teapot. The picture, as you’ll see it, is a thing of magnificent pictorial beauty. But aside from that, it’s little else. It’s certainly not screen entertainment as we’ve come to know it — any Hollywood studio and direc¬ tor could have turned out better. Here is told the story of a peon and his fiancee, of her betrayal by a landowner, of the peon’s revenge — and of the landowner’s revenge, in turn, on the peons. Here is a scene that for sheer brutality has never been equalled by any Hollywood horror-film — the se¬ quence showing “the punishment of the horses” — where naked peons, buried in sand to the shoulders, are trampled to death by horses. Your Reviewer Says: If you feel that occasional “shots” more beautiful than any you’ve seen screened in a long time repay you for the rest of the picture, all right. But don’t look for much else. Not For Children. k^The Sphinx (Monogram) you’ll See: Lionel Atzvill, Theodore Nezvton, Sheila Terry, Paul Hurst, Luis Alberni, others. It’s About A murder-mystery, zoith the crux of the plot depending on tzvin brothers — one normal, the other deaf-anddumb. By now, it’s a fifty-fifty bet that Lionel Atwill couldn’t step unannounced into any gathering of picture-goers, without most Inside Stuff knows all the stars. He’s given most of them traffic tickets. From London, the other day, he got a postcard. “I bet you wish you were here. I drive on the wrong side of the street all the time and no one gives me a ticket!” It was signed by Constance Cummings, who is playing in a couple of British pictures. So Cop Reed tore a ticket out of his book, filled it out to Connie for driving on the wrong side of the street and mailed it to her. of them getting scared silly. He’s rapidly assuming rank as the meanest, baddest, dirtiest old feller on. the screen. Herein he’s a baddie who poses as a deaf-and-dumb philanthropist. Actually, he’s a killer. But you’re not supposed to know that until the end of the picture, when the facts are revealed in as suspensefull a sequence as has ever been screened — a sequence making use of a trick piano to uncover the mysterious business. Your Reviewer Says : For mysteryhounds, this one is sure-fire. For Children: They’d enjoy it. But do you let them see murder mysteries? Cheating Blondes (Equitable) you’ll See: Thelma Todd, Rolf Harolde, Inez Courtney, Mae Busch, others. It’s About Tzvin sisters, a murder , a re¬ porter who tries to pin the crime on the gal who told him no. Because she plays two women in this, Thelma Todd has the fat share of the footage. Being lovely to look at, as well as an entertaining actress, Thelma clicks — particularly in the leggy cabaret scenes. Wonder what Pasquale de Cicco (Thelma’s hubby, who’s reputed one of Hollywood’s most jealous ones) thinks of wifie’s roles? The story is about Reporter Rolf Har¬ olde, a cabaret gal who goes away to have a baby, her twin sister (suspected of mur¬ der) who takes the performer’s place — and how, in the long run, the nasty old re¬ porter gets it in the neck and Thelma (both of her!) find the happy ending. Your Reviewer Says : Just so-so . . . For Children: Hardly. She Loved a Star (Columbia) you’ll See: Wally Ford, Barbara Kent, Dickie Moore, J. Farrell MacDonald, others. It’s About. A big-time ballplayer who gets in wrong because he’s going blind but won’t tell. A good idea that went astray, this filmstory of a baseball star, stuck on himself, who hits the down-slide when blindness follows his being hit on the head by a pitched ball. He’s suspected of working with crooked gamblers. Heart-throbs come in via the girl who loves him, and the dying little kid who calls for his idol. Of course, there’s the happy ending — via the opera¬ tion that brings back his sight. Your Reviewer Says : You’ll feel dis¬ appointed. For Children : Oh, yes — but the boys’ll catch unreality in the baseball stuff. Did you hear Will Rogers’ radio crack about the administration changing the name of "Hoover Dam”? Said Will: “They needn’t have changed it. Why didn’t they just reverse it?” A certain blonde actress turned down a film role after she’d taken a film test for the job. The studio, fuming, asked her: “Well, why did you put us to the time, bother and expense of making the test if you weren’t gonna take the job?” 77