Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1948)

For you (even though your Math's a little weak) if you keep your hair smooth and neat and sweet to see . . . You'll rate A-plus with that dreamboat sitting next to you in class . . . and what more can a girl ask? Just keep your hair clean and shiny and leave the rest to De£onc) Bob Pins, those indispensable allies. They keep stray locks in place because they have a Stronger Grip Won't Slip Out No fear of DeLong Bob Pins losing this vise-like grip. Why? They’re made of high-carbon steel. Quality Manufacturers for Over 50 years BOB PINS HAIR PINS SAFETY PINS P SNAPS PINS HOOKS a EYES HOOK a EYE TAPES SANITARY BELTS 6 ( Continued V'V 13 Rue Madeleine (20th Century-Fox) AS any seasoned movie-goer knows, spies stop at nothing to accomplish their mission. And when the spy is dynamic James Cagney he’s sure to follow through, come what may. Indeed, there’s no risk too great, no punishment too severe to deter him from his line of duty. With Walter Abel’s help, Cagney supervises the intensive training of would-be agents enrolled in the U. S. espionage service, three of whom belong to the same unit: Annabella, a French emigrant, Richard Conte, world traveler and linguist,. Frank Latimore, high school teacher. Soon it’s revealed that one of them is, in reality, an important member of the German Intelligence. From there on out, a grim game is played, everyone attending strictly to business with nary a thought of love. Cagney, Conte and Abel keep the performance brisk between them; Annabella and Latimore are excellently cast in their respective roles, and Sam Jaffe stands out as the mayor of a French town where many of the melodramatic events, designed to keep you glued to your seat, take place. Your Reviewer Says: High-powered thriller. 'S'S The Secret Heart (M-G-M) PUT down on your movies-to-be-seen list this psychological drama with Claudette Colbert, Walter Pidgeon and June Allyson at the helm. Delightfully feminine as always, Claudette plays a young widow juggling with the problem of bringing up a pair of stepchildren on one hand and withstanding the charming Pidgeon on the other. The conscientious Claudette insists upon discharging her late husband’s (Richard Derr) debts, single-handed. As if shouldering that burden weren’t quite enough, her musically inclined stepdaughter, June, comes down with a father fixation which she later transfers to Pidgeon. June is so utterly fresh and wholesome looking that it’s hard to believe she’s the little screwball— beg pardon, neurotic — she’s supposed to be here. Still if she weren’t a bit balmy, they wouldn’t have to call in Psychiatrist Lionel Barrymore, would they? Robert Sterling makes a most agreeable stepson; Marshall Thompson is June’s bashful beau, and Elizabeth Patterson ably attends to the family’s creature comforts. Your Reviewer Says: A bull’s eye! The Devil on Wheels (PRC) IT isn’t in the least surprising that the National Safety Council has endorsed this film, dealing as it does with reckless driving. The sermonizing is sugar-coated with some up-to-date lingo and a bit of necking by a group of kids who believe in “doin’ what comes naturally .” Racing around in hopped-up jalopies, endangering their own and other lives, comes too naturally! Although Damian O’Flynn gets his sixteen-year-old son, Darryl Hickman, to promise to be careful, he himself is brought up on a speeding charge, pointing up the responsibility of the parent in setting a good example. To lighten the lecture, there’s a romance between James Cardwell, and Noreen Nash. Your Reviewer Says: Watch your speed! k' Dead Reckoning (Columbia) YOU can bet on three things in a Humphrey Bogart picture: Savage action, crackling talk, casual love making. They’re all here in ample measure; what’s more. from page 4) hard-boiled Bogie meets his match in Lizabeth Scott, blonde bombshell with the pluperfect poise. A paratroop captain, Bogart is to be decorated by the War Department along with his buddy, William Prince, when the latter disappears. Guessing there’s something in his pal’s past he’s trying to cover up, Bogart — trouble shooter that he is — starts searching for him, winding up in a Mexican Gulf town. Liz Scott turns up as the woman in the case and, even as his buddy before him, Bogie falls under this husky-voiced siren’s spell — falls, too, into the clutches of Mobster Morris Carnovsky. Your Reviewer Says: Not for the squeamish. V California (Paramount) THERE’S a machine-made quality to this chronicle of California’s bitter battle of 1848-50 for admission into the Union where there should be a stirring story of historical significance. Still, you’ll get your quota of blood-and-thunder action in a super-special setting, and you may enjoy the novelty of seeing Ray Milland in a horsey role. Certainly, his portrayal of an Army deserter, turned wagon-train guide, is in sharp contrast to that of the debonair aristocrat of “Kitty.” While leading a caravan across country, just before news of the gold strike breaks, Ray meets Barbara Stanwyck and they promptly snap and snarl at each other — a sure sign they’ve got that old familiar feeling! It doesn’t take Barbara long to become the fiancee of villainous George Coulouris, out to make California his personal property. Thereafter, it’s never quite certain which side she’s on, her head pulling her one way, her heart the other. Barry Fitzgerald plays a kindly farmer, lured into politics. Your Reviewer Says: Gun-play in Technicolor. ^ The Verdict (Warners) PORTLY, inscrutable Sidney Greenstreet and bland, boyish Peter Lorre are teamed up, once more, in a fairly suspenseful if not too convincing whodunit, fashioned from an Israel Zangwill novel. Shrouded in London’s fog of the nineties, it dwells upon the possibility of an innocent man’s hanging for another’s crime solely on circumstantial evidence. After thirty years’ honorable service with Scotland Yard, Greenstreet is summarily dismissed for unintentionally but irretrievably sending to his death a guiltless man. That the crafty George Coulouris is selected to succeed Greenstreet is tantamount to rubbing salt into his wounds. His friend, Lorre, artist and man about town, sympathizes with him and, together, they watch and wait, certain that the Yard’s new supervisor will be tripped up by the first tough case that comes along. Joan Lorring is a saucy little slut. Your Reviewer Says: Passable puzzler. fV The Captive Heart ( Ealing-Prestige ) MANY phases of the war have been presented in pictorial form but the poignant story of the prisoners of war has never been told more stirringly. Michael Redgrave effectively plays a Czech officer who assumes the identity of an English soldier after stumbling over his corpse. Just escaped from one Nazi concentration camp, he is herded into another with hundreds of other unfortunates. His fluent German and some slips of the tongue arouse the suspicions of his fellowprisoners but he convinces them that he is definitely on ( Continued on page 10)