The New Movie Magazine (Dec 1929-May 1930)

ALL YOU WANT TO KNOW THE THIRTEENTH CHAIR— Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer SOME years ago Bayard Veiller wrote a corking stage melodrama, "The Thirteenth Chair," with Margaret Wycherly starred as a quaint old fortuneteller. The big scene, showed a seance, with thirteen seated in a circle, clasping hands. The big moment came when the occupant of the thirteenth chair tumbled forward, dead, stabbed through the back. Yet the circle appeared to be unbroken. This melodrama has been neatly transformed into a talkie, although the crime has been shifted to another character. Miss Wycherly is still the old fortune-teller, while Conrad Nagel and Leila Hyams are the lovers. Bela Lugosi is excellent as the police investigator. SONG OF LOVE— Columbia T)ELLE BAKER, long a popular vaudeville headliner, *-* makes her talkie debut in this, another backstage yarn. Miss Baker plays a variety luminary who does an act with her husband at a piano and her son singing from a box. All goes well until mamma decides that Sonny Boy ought to go to school and have a regular boy's life. She retired from the stage to take care of him and the husband takes a new woman partner. That brings matrimonial disaster, but all goes well in the end. There's a reconciliation. Miss Baker sings five or six songs, including "Take Everything Away But You." A fair picture — if you like Miss Baker and her variety personality. ii tj Wt^% $ ': BHP^* :SSfc: WM m ' 3* ^Si"^ *f ^"^jr piyat -M I *9^ * ~-^y& ffias*-^ THE GREAT GABBO— Wide World THE combination of Erich Von Stroheim as a sinister and egotistical ventriloquist and the direction of James Cruze seemed unbeatable. Particularly, with a corking and unusual story by Ben Hecht. Mr. Hecht told a striking yarn of a ventriloquist whose real self asserted itself only through the dummy used in his act. Hard and brutal on the surface, Gabbo's only kindness came in the dummy's whispered confidences. This story was lost in a maze of musical numbers. Even Von Stroheim, always a vivid player, seemed puzzled in the confusion. He is not at his best. Betty Compson is the girl he loves in his selfish way. LOVE, LIVE AND LAUGH— Fox GEORGE JESSEL, familiar to musical comedy, is not a striking success in the talkies, by any means. In this story he depicts a young Italian who goes back to Italy on a visit and is caught in the whirlpool of the World War. When he gets back to these United States he is blind. The lad recovers his sight after an operation and the first person he sees is his former sweetheart, now the great surgeon's wife. Lila Lee plays the Italian boy's sweetheart. Jessel is now back on Broadway, returning to musical comedy. That's the answer to this film. He was signed up with the army of other stage big names in the hope of discovering a real find. BIG TIME— Fox ANOTHER story of vaudevillians with a breaking heart. This ought to be somewhere near the end of them. At that it has a good cast, with Lee Tracy, who played the hoofer in the Broadway production of "Broadway," and the promising and personable Mae Clark, who ought to do big things in the talkies before long. Miss Clark will bear watching. Also you will find Josephine Dunn playing another selfish gal and Stepin Fetchit acting as first aid to the story. Here's hoping that 1930 will clean up on this stock plot of the talkie. We've had enough. And while they're at it, we can get along without underworld stories for a long time ; that is, unless George Bancroft plays them. 86