Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1931)

SAVES YOUR PICTURE TIME AND MONEY The Best Pictures of the Month FORBIDDEN ADVENTURE NIGHT NURSE ALEXANDER HAMILTON THE MIRACLE WOMAN AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY THE GIRL HABIT LE MILLION THE SQUAW MAN The Best Performances of the Month Barbara Stanwyck in "Night Nurse" Joan Blondell in "Night Nurse" George Arliss in "Alexander Hamilton" Doris Kenyon in "Alexander Hamilton" Barbara Stanwyck in "The Miracle Woman" David Manners in "The Miracle Woman" Sam Hardy in "The Miracle Woman" Phillips Holmes in "An American Tragedy" Sylvia Sidney in "An American Tragedy" Irving Pichel in "An American Tragedy" Charles Ruggles in "The Girl Habit" Bruce Line in "Forbidden Adventure" Jackie Scarl in "Forbidden Adventure" Mitzi Green in "Forbidden Adventure" Edna May Oliver in "Forbidden Adventure" Louise Fazenda in "Forbidden Adventure" Warner Baxter in "The Squaw Man" Casts of all photoplays reviewed will be found on page 126 * NIGHT NURSE— Warners A REPRESENTATIVE from another studio announced after the preview of this: "Several states will bar it. They won't have any more gangsters." All we've got to say is: we feel sorry for them. The states will be the losers. You don't get entertainment like this very often. And it isn't Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Blondell, Ben Lyon or Clark Gable. It's the combination of them all, plus a fine story, splendid direction, humor, novelty — oh, what's the use! Drag out your pet adjectives, go see this and use 'em. Yes, Ben Lyon's a bootlegger who knows a couple of fellows who get rid of other bootleggers. Which means "gangster," we suppose, even though he only has them bump off real villains. Barbara's a nurse who's out to clean up unethical practices of unethical physicians. You can't help but feel bootleggers are preferable to doctors who help kill tiny children for money. There's the hospital ward, the true leveler of humanity, which evokes many a chuckle. There's the ambulance room which gives a glimpse into the pathos and the humor of emergency treatments — and a too-short glimpse of a clever young interne played by that funny boy, Eddie Nugent. And there's a whole lot more worth seeing! * AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY— Paramount IT doesn't matter how strictly this follows the book, the meat of it is there. Every bit of the cruel tragedy that Dreiser wrote into his story, Von Sternberg has poured into the picture. You'll probably say of it : "A great film — but I don't know whether I like it or not ..." There is photographic beauty that has seldom been equalled. There is a glorious cast: Phillips Holmes, Sylvia Sidney, Frances Dee, Irving Pichel, Charles Middleton — each one of whom does praiseworthy work. Directorially, Yon Sternberg's wizardry is manifest always. In the suspense of the courtroom sequence, he sets new standards. "An American Tragedy" is one of the month's best pictures — artistically and technically. But it might have been better without Mr. Dreiser's interference. * THE GIRL HABIT— Paramount AN uproarious farce that not only boosts Charlie Ruggles to stardom, but lets him squeeze every bit out of a hilarious part cut to his measure. As a wealthy young bachelor who has a great facility for getting himself involved with the ladies, Charlie successively gets in trouble with his fiancee, his intended mother-in-law, a lady blackmailer, her gunman husband, the police and the jail warden's wife. Everything in the way of hokum is in it, except the U. S. Marines, but adroit adapting, skillful directing and the fine acting of the entire cast lift it above the ordinary. Donald Meek, Sue Conroy, Margaret Dumont, Allen Jenkins, Tamara Geva, Douglas Gilmore, Jerome Daley and Betty Garde splendidly support Ruggles. It's all laughs. See it! 57