The Movies ... and the People Who Make Them (1939)

"The MOVIES • • • • 1939" throwing man of the great outdoors. With him leading the way, the ranchers put up a grand battle and at last defeat the crooks to the tune of action excitement. At the finish hero Scott has eliminated the killer hired by the Jones-Dunlap combine and has convinced Anne that romance is better than reporting. Scott Baylor is custom tailored for George O’Brien and he plays with consistent vigor and conviction. Marjorie Reynolds supplies the romance, Chill Wills the comedy as a tall tale spinner and Morgan Wallace and Guy Usher the sinister villainy. The outdoor photography is excellent and there is fast action most of the way. It’s dependable, better-than average western fare. MICKEY. THE KID: Produced by Herman Schlom for Republic Director: Arthur Lubin Screenplay: Doris Malloy, Gordon Kahn Story: Alice Altschuler Photography: Jack Marta Editor: William Morgan Jim Larch Bruce Cabot Dr. Cameron Ralph Byrd Ld Zasu Pitts Mickey Tommy Ryan Mrs. Hudson Jessie Ralph Sheila June Storey Sheriff J Farrell MacDonald Mailman John Qualen Farrow Robert Elliot Booby Scotty Beckett Routine action melodrama offering another variation of the father-son theme; the story of a bank robber and his boy, who is reformed by his grandfather and inspires his father to final heroism. (Adults 8C Young People) (Running time, 66 minutes) Mickey, the Kid has been brought up a young tough guy in the slums by his bank-robber father, Jim Larch. Then Jim kills, a bankteller and is forced to leave the boy with his maternal grandmother in a small town while he himself keeps a jump or two ahead of the G-men. When he returns, he finds Mickey has been changed by the new and wholesome environment. The G-men have located Mickey and this time when father Jim escapes, he takes Mickey with him. They commandeer a busload of school children and dash along the roads through a blizzard until stopped by a snowdrift. Jim wants to abandon the children, but Mickey refuses to leave them. Jim nobly returns to the village for aid and is shot — but before he dies gives the location of the bus. Meanwhile Mickey has built a fire and kept the children singing and moving about to keep warm. When help arrives he is hailed as a hero and his reformation is complete. Bruce Cabot has the task of being both a loving father and a criminal killer and manages by straightforward earnestness to inject some conviction into the implausible plot. Young Tommy Ryan is handicapped bv a script which makes him first an extreme little toughie then an extreme boy scout type, but impresses as a coming juvenile player. Jessie Ralph is the crusty grandmother who at last wins over tiltboy and Zasu Pitts supplies her standard comedy as a maid. The only romantic in terest is briefly suggested between the father's boyhood friend and the town schoolteacher. The entire picture is done in rather heavy-handed style and is obviously aimed at adolescent audiences. NEWS IS MADE AT NIGHT: Produced by Edward Kaufman for 20th Century-Pox Director: Alfred Werker Screenplay: John Larkin Photography: Ernest Palmer Art Directors: Richard Day, Chester Gore Music Director: Samuel Kaylin Editor: Nick De Maggio Steve Drum Preston Foster Maxine Thomas Lynn Bari Albert Hockman Russell Gleason Clanahan George Barbier Billiard Eddie Collins Charles Coulton Minor Watson Elmer Hinge Charles Halton Inspector Melrose Paul Harvey Barney Baseley Richard Lane Rule Reynolds Charles Lane Kitty Truman Betty Compson Joe Luddy Paul Fix Bat Randall Paul Guilfoyle Breezy and preposterous newspaper melodrama in which a girl reporter and a hard-boiled managing editor squabble their way to romance wnile trying to outdo each other saving an innocent man trom execution. (Adults 8C Young People) (Running time, 71 minutes) Another variation on the impudent feminine reporter vs. the girl-hating editor. News Is Made at Night is as familiar a Hollywood newspaper yarn as the information its title offers. Maxine Thomas gets a job on the paper run by Stephen Drum only through the influence of wealthy Charles Coulton. The two of them, reporter and editor, squabble so consistently that any film faithful can safely bet on a proposal at the finish. When Stephen gets a tip on a notorious murder case and starts after some new circulation building headlines, Maxine blackmails her way to a chance on the story. Thereafter they scurry about trying to get ahead of each other with clues, resorting to all manner of ruses to keep each other out of the running. The trail leads eventually to none other than supposed best-friend Coulton and both are there for the action climax which clears up the case. Convinced at least that a girl can be both a good reporter and a good sport, editor Stephen offers her a by-line and a wedding. Done in the preposterous movie newspaper manner which provides passing amusement and makes real newspapermen writhe, the film skips along snappily and often merrily. Preston Foster is the per* feet Hollywood managing editor, ready to manufacture sensations if no real ones can be found or to indulge in burglary and kindred amiable crimes while solving problems that baffle the police and to do it all in easy stride without removing his hat. His assistants in excitement are such veterans of such melodramas as Russell Gleason, George Barbier, Minor Watson and Eddie Collins. Lynn Bari tags along as a decorative but unconvincing Maxine. It’s an unpretentious and moderately entertaining program filler. LAND OF LIBERTY: Sponsored by the Motion Picture Producers & Distributors of America, Inc. Editors: Cecil B. DeMille, Francis S. Harmon, William H. Pine, Herbert L. Moulton Narration: Jeannie Macpherson, Jesse L. Lasky, Jr. Historical Consultant: James T. Shotwell A remarkabe and thoroughly interesting survey of American history as interpreted on the entertainment screen; a compilation of more than 1000 sequences from features and shorts, chronologically edited and held together by a fine narrative accompaniment. (Family) (Running time, 137 minutes) The motion picture industry’s contribution to the 1939 world fairs (New York and San Francisco) is precisely what it should be: a motion picture. And it is precisely the type of motion picture which should be contributed by an entertainment business purveying drama to its multitudinous audiences — not a careful documenting of American history but, as explained by Professor James T. Shotwell in his commentary, “the drama of a free people after it had achieved freedom.” Statistically Land of Liberty is a comprehensive compilation of more than 1000 sequences from at least 115 features and shorts and innumerable newsreels and brief bits from old film archives Pictures used range from The Birth of a Nation in 1914 to the Bill of Rights short in the current Warner series, with a few flashes of film taken as far back as before the turn of the century. Some 125 name-players of past and present are there to be recognized by fans with long memories. But the film has been so skilfully compiled, so shrewdly edited, that, though it is also a history of the motion picture product, its real interest is as a history of events in the United States since the Revolutionary War. About 20 minutes is devoted to the early settlement days and the Revolutionary War. The Louisiana Purchase, the War of 1812 and the gold rush are the major events of the period to the Civil War. That conflict has been presented in greatest detail. The post-war years are well documented, primarily from the super-westerns about the building of the railroads, the Chicago fire, the San Francisco earthquake and such colorful figures as Diamond Jim Brady. The final 40 minutes covers the building of the America of today up to, but not including, the present prolonged world depression and uniest. Newsreel scenes of President Roosevelt open and close the film, the opening in particular setting the tone of the entire picture with his address at the rededication of the Statue of Liberty. Representing an amazing amount of detailed research and modern movie skill, I and of Liberty is a tribute to both the motion picture industry and to American democracy. Necessarily episodic with noticeable gaps here and there in its chronology, it is yet given dramatic unity by its consistent theme: the struggle to rttain and to defend American liberty. I ( 182