Personal Movies (1933)

240 PERSONAL MOVIES The Cine Analyst bv George W. Hesse "MOONLIGHT & PRETZELS" Directed bv Karl Freund and PhotO' graphed by William Miller "Moonlight and Pretzels" suffers seriously from the fact that it is a stereotyped conventional story of back stage life during the production of a lavish musical comedy on Broadway, the only points of newness about it being the songs, lyrics and dance routines. In plot and development it is like many another screen musical which has come and gone, leaving no more than a shadow of a ripple on the surface of the entertainment world where things move and change and progress with a rapidity undreamed of in other lines of endeavor. Hampered by a story not strikingly original and by, in the opinion of this department, several instances of inept casting, the director has, nevertheless, turned out a picture worthwhile for at least an evening's entertainment if not the "twenty entertainments rolled into one" which one movie critic effusively penned on the opening night. If you have seen any one of the socalled back-stage" screen musicals, you will have seen "Moonlight and Pretzels," so far as the story is concerned; and as for the tunes, youve probably heard them countless times over the radio. It is interesting chiefly for being the first picture of major importance to be produced in an Eastern studio for a long, long time. If nothing else, it proves that pictures can be made in the East which are certainly no better and no worse than those made in Hollywood. As in all musicals of this type, "Moonlight and Pretzels" ends up as a lavish, brilliant musical spectacle put on by the bright young author. It is so lavish and brilliant in fact, that it could never have been presented on the stage of a theatre, where it is supposedly presented. Therein lies one of the major faults of this type of screen musical. Most pictures have the saving grace of at least remaining in character, but screen musicals which devote themselves to the trials and tribulations of the birth of a Broadway musical show, blithely ignore this basic fundamental and ultimately de stroy every semblance of realism carefully built up in the opening and introductory scenes of the picture as a whole. Thus we have, on the opening night when the author or director nervously stands in the wings sending in rows of scantily clad chorus girls and complimenting principals as they come off stage from their big numbers, such incongruities as scenes shot from directly above the center of the stage showing the prancing chorines going through beautiful and intricate evolutions. Yet these scenes are supposedly The "Dusty Shoes" number is particularly obnoxious in this respect. It is put on in a lavish, wierdly changing manner such as could never be duplicated on the stage of a theatre. Even the gigantic stage of the Radio City Music Hall, famed for its gadgets and gyrations, what with sections which, at the pressure of a control button, rise straight us, move forward, backwards, sideways and revolve, could not put on "Dusty Shoes" in the same manner as it was put on in "Moonlight and Pretzels." 11 \\m. 1 ' Q |4§ hri# JCrtlH |w9 1 u \ 1 1 ilM Wow Si Aii "off-stage" shot showing the director anil cameraman lining up for a semi-close-up. Note the new type of eamera blimp and perambulator which takes the plaee of the conventional field tripod. those which the audience out front sees. They are out of character, no matter how effectively they may be of themselves. Of course, it is necessary to get variety into the picturization of chorus evolutions, else they would prove hopelessly boring. But the variety should not be introduced at the expense of naturalness or realism. The scene mentioned above, that in which the camera points directly down on the heads of the chorous, could have been kept in character by simple expedient of making it frankly a bit of back-stage action, as if it were that portion of the show seen by a stage hand or electrician from his post high up amongst the scenery and light grills and scaffolding. At one time in the picture, a clever device was used to bring in a dancing sequence in a natural manner. I refer to that sequence in which the authorcomposer is expounding his ideas on the dances to go with "Ah, But Is It Love?" On the piano stands a miniature stage in which six figures are in dancing attitudes. The camera concen' trates on the miniature stage and the figurines apparently come to life and go through the dance routine as conceived by the author. Thus easily, effortlessly and naturally the dance sequence was brought in and was a definite help to the picture rather than an hindrance. During several sequences, color was (Continued on page 242)