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THE NATIONAL GUIDE TO MOTION PICTURES
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ILLICIT— Warners
WELL, here's another big triumph for that perfectly grand actress, Barbara Stanwyck, who impressed herself on film audiences in "Ladies of Leisure."
This film, daring as youth, is amazingly unconventional in both treatment and theory. It tells the story of a girl, who, knowing what marriage does to people, does not want to wed her lover. But she discovers the stone wall of convention too formidable a rival for her freedom of thought. The picture will make you think, but more, you will be entertained by the naturalness of the dialogue, the restraint of the direction and the perfection of Miss Stanwyck's performance. There could have been a happier choice for male lead than James Rennie, but the rest of the cast, outstanding among them Charles Butterworth, is splendid.
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THE BAT WHISPERS— United Artists
SWALLOW a sedative, grasp your nerves firmly in both hands, set your teeth, and go look at this daddy of all mystery thrillers. It's got everything — but we mustn't tell. Because after you're all limp at the finish, you're ordered to stay in your seat and Chet Morris walks onto the screen in nicely pressed evening clothes and says please not to go out and give it all away. Roland West and his cameramen deserve high praise for direction and photography. Only in certain much-discussed foreign pictures have there been camera feats of equal effectiveness.
Morris, in the lead, is excellent, but equally memorable is the work of a grand supporting cast — particularly Maude Eburne, Grace Hampton and Gustav Yon Seyffertitz.
Released, too, in wide-screen size — and it's grander yet.
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A Review of the New Pictures
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LIGHTNIN'— Fox
HERE'S willrogersing at its best. And what more do you need to know?
"Lightnin' " was the stage play that made the late Frank Bacon famous. It centers, you recall, about the Reno divorce mill and the hotel that's built across the NevadaCalifornia State line. "Lightnin"' has been transferred from the stage to the screen without losing one sparkle of its brilliant lines— and to top it off, they've added other lines that are every whit as good as the originals.
Of course, the role is a "natural" for Will Rogers. As the shiftless, whimsical, truth-embroidering Bill Jones, he's a nine-reel scream. Call it the best role of his screen career, and you'll not be far wrong.
The producers backed him up with as aptly-chosen a cast as has ever made a picture. Louise Dresser as the wife, and Joel McCrea and George Cohan's daughter, Helen, as the love interest, are particularly good.
Director Henry King has done splendid things with the story and as for backgrounds — well, it still goes to show that old lady nature is still a darned sight better scene painter than the craftiest artists in Hollywood.
If you have something else to do, postpone it and see "Lightnin' " anyway. You'll feel better about everything.