Photoplay (Jan - Jun 1943)

Brief Reviews (Continued jrom page 21) Annapolis, where he gets the smart-aleckness taken out of him. (Dec.) HENRY ALDRICH. EDITOR— Paramount : The irrepressible Henry is accused of arson when he hints of sabotage in his high-school paper and building after building is set afire. But of course he traps the real culprit. Jimmy Lydon as Henry, Charles Smith as Dicey, and Rita Ouigley as the girl friend are right in there pitching. (Jan.) \/ HERE WE GO AGAIN— RKO-Radio: A giggle test, with Fibber McGee and Molly celebrating twenty years of marriage at a hotel where Edgar Bergen, with Charley McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd, is searching for a peculiar moth to aid the production of silk. You can imagine the goings-on, with the great Gildersleeve adding to the laughs and with Ginny Simms singing to Ray Nobel's music. (Nov.) HIDDEN HAND, THE — Warners: Practically everybody gets killed in this potpourri of gore when an elderly woman fakes death and burial to test her dreadful relatives, and in the testing no less than five corpses litter up the story. Craig Stevens, Elizabeth Fraser and Ruth Ford are unfortunate enough to be cast in this one. (Jan.) HIGHWAYS BY NIGHT— RKO-Radio: Richard Carlson as the millionaire playboy who gets taken by gangsters and ends up in the trucking business does very well with loosely knit material. Jane Randolph is fair as the girl, but Jane Darwell, Barton MacLane and Ray Collins are good. Aver age. (Dec.) HILLBILLY BLITZKRIEG— ■Monogram: The famous cartoon characters, Snuffy Smith, played by Bud Duncan, and Barney Google, played by Cliff Xazarro, cut all sorts of capers that have the pair embroiled in a rocket invention. Edgar Kennedy as an Army sergeant and Lucien Littlefield as an inventor add to the rather silly maneuvers. (Nov.) • ICELAND— 20th Century-Fox: Some of the best skating of her career is presented by Sonja Henie; but the story's only fair. It has Sonja, an Iceland maid, grabbing off John Payne, a Marine on the island, before he knows where he is. Osa Massen is Sonja's sister, Jack Oakie clowns on skates very funnily and Sammy Kaye and his orchestra provide some swell music. (Nov.) \S I MARRIED A WITCH — The Cinema GuildU.A.: Veronica Lake is the determined svitch who returns with her father, Cecil Kellaway, to bedevil Fredric March, who's about to marry Susan Hayward and run for Governor. Hut Veronica falls in love with March, to the dismay of Kellaway, and the result's fantastic but fun. Robert Benchley is March's droll pal. (Jan.) ISLE OF MISSING MEN— Monogram : A rather suspenseful little melodrama with John Howard as the governor of a penal colony. He befriends Helen Gilbert who has come to the island to help her husband Gilbert Roland escape and much exciting action transpires before she is successful. (Nov.) JACKASS MAIL— M-G-M: Wally Beery and Marjorie Main in their familiar story of a renegade who became regenerated through the orphaned son of the man Beery kills. It takes Darryl Hickman, the boy, and Marjorie Main, fearless owner of the transport mail line, to civilize Wally. (Nov.) yy JOURNEY FOR MARGARET — M-G-M: Robert Young is brilliant as the American correspondent in London who meets orphaned William Severn and Margaret O'Brien at the rescue home of Fay Bainter and takes them home to America. Both the children are wonderful, and the experiences of English children orphaned and homeless will touch your heart. (Jan.) JUNGLE SIREN— P.R.C. : A silly, stupid little number, this one, concerning Nazi agents at work amongst jungle tribes in Africa. Buster Crabbe and Ann Corio, the former strip-teaser, are the leads, but neither has a chance to be very good. (Jan.) JUST OFF BROADWAY— 20th Century-Fox: When juror Michael Shayne, played as usual by Lloyd Nolan, sees the evidence piling up against the innocent defendant, he sets out on his own to uncover the guilty party. Girl reporter Marjorie Weaver, press cameraman Phil Silvers, attorney Richard Derr and singer Joan Valerie are all in on the excitement. (Dec.) LITTLE TOKIO. U. S. A.— 20th Century-Fox: The West Coast's Japanese colony comes into the spotlight with this lively little epic of a police officer, Preston Foster, who suspects shenanigans in the Jap settlement. Comes Pearl Harbor, and he scoops up spies like fury. Brenda Joyce is his girl friend, and June Duprez, Harofd Huber and George E. Stone are spies. (Nov.) CLOVES OF EDGAR ALLAN POE. THE— 20th Century-Fox: Depth and beauty characterize this tale of the great poet's li f e — his adoption as a child, his first boyhood love affair with Virginia Gilmore, his marriage to Linda Darnell and his slow disintegration due to alcoholism. John Shep perd seems an ideal Poe; Miss Gilmore and Mis? Darnell give polished performances. (Dec.) MAN IN THE TRUNK, THE— 20th CenturyFox: When pretty Lynne Roberts, dancer, buys a trunk, she finds the remains of a body inside, and Attornej rge Holme tries to exonerate his convicted client by proving his innocence through the skeleton in the trunk, who obligingly comes back as a ghost to aid in the exposure of the real culprit. (Jan.) MEXICAN SPITFIRE'S ELEPHANT— RKO Radio: Leon Errol again plays the dual role of Laid Epping and Uncle Matt, with Lupe Velez all over the place trying to help out Uncle Matt when smuggled jewels are hidden in an onyx elephant and the elephant must be returned pronto. Walter Reed is Lupe's husband, and Lyle Talbot and Marion Martin are the smugglers. (Nov.) MOONLIGHT IN HAVANA— Universal: Allan Jones is a discharged ball player who can sing only when he has a cold, and when a manager of i i raveling group of entertainers hears him warbling he signs him up. From there on it's everybody's show, with pretty Jane Frazee and Marjorie Lord in a tussle for Jones's affections. (Jan.) MUMMY'S TOMB, THE— Universal: Lon Chaney's the mummy who's been kept alive through the ages and transported to America to kill archaeolo gists Dick Foran and Wally Ford who disturbed the mummy's tomb years before. John Hubbard and Elyse Knox are the romantic leads, and it's a scarey little number. (Jan.) L>V MY SISTER EILEEN— Columbia: A howl from start to finish is this adaptation of the successful play about two sisters who come to New York to seek a career. Rosalind Russell is the older sister, Janet Blair her pretty sister Eileen; and George Tobias is their landlord. Brian Aherne, the editor, and reporter Allyn Joslyn join the throng who wander in and out of their basement apartment. (Dec.) I/V_ NAVY COMES THROUGH, THE— R.K.O. Radio: A swell service picture, this one, with George Murphy as the disgraced officer who enlists as a plain seaman under the command of Petty Officer Pat O'Brien. Max Baer and Jackie Cooper stand out as sailors, Desi Arnaz and Frank Jenks add pep to the maneuvers, and Jane Wyatt is very good •MOKING LESS-Or SMOKING MORE'? You re SAFER smoking PHILIP MORRIS! Scientifically proved less irritating for the nose and throat Here it is— fast. Reported by eminent doctors— in medical journals. Their own findings that: When smokers changed to PHILIP MORRIS, every case of irritation of the nose or throat — due to smoking — either cleared up completely, or definitely improved I NOTE we do not claim curative power for Philip Morris. But, man ! What solid proof they're better . . . safer . . . for nose and throat. And that's in addition to their finer quality— the finer flavor and aroma of superb tobaccos. Try them! /0*S^^? ZZs£(?£7C?0/ mm PHILIP MORR FEBRUARY, 1943 103