Photoplay (Jul-Dec 1945)

Boy and girl: hearts and flowers It’s a love-match, too, when good chewing gum flavors wed. Popular flavors are happily united in Warren s Chewing Gum. In CiN-A-MiNT, for instance, warm, spicy cinnamon teams up with cool, refreshing peppermint — and gum chewers live happily ever after. WarreN’S is good chewing gum. Try some today. ASK FOR WARREN'S CHEWING GUM , ■ — " £ r,.. "V ^ Made by Bowman Gum, Inc. Philadelphia 44, Pa. TO H 0 LD—WAR BONDS paced but touching story. Arturo de Cordova of “Frenchman’s Creek’’ fame is more human in his role of Joe Morales, who loves Dorothy Lamour, betrothed to Benny. As the pompous citizens ashamed of Naish and his abode when honor comes, Charles Dingle and Frank McHugh are outstanding. It was a relief to glimpse Mr. Dingle smile just once. Mikhail Rasumny as Naish’s friend takes over for one scene that’s a honey. May we remark again that this Rasumny is a very good actor? We think you’ll enjoy Miss Lamour without a sarong, too. Rosita Moreno, Fernanda-Ivarado, Grant Mitchell and Douglass Dumbrille each perform well in this appealingly simple story. Your Reviewer Says: A heart warmer. Murder, He Says (Paramount) LOOKIE what we have here — a 1945 movie with a 1920 chasis and a Keystone Comedy motor. Gags, corn, slapsick crowd the actors literally off the screen which, considering the types they are, isn’t a bad idea. It’s a mystery how a well-behaved young man like Fred MacMurray got mixed up with such weirdies as the Fleagle family. For instance, Marjorie Main is the rootin’ tootin’ old hillbilly mother, Peter Whitney a set of the nuttiest twins you ever saw. Porter Hall Marjorie’s amazing husband — it was the contrast that made him amazing — and Jean Heather a droopy doop if you ever saw one. '* Fred, who is a sort of Gallup Poll fellow, runs into the Fleagle group back in the M hillbilly country while searching for a missing co-worker. That Fred almost winds up missing himself is no wonder. For a while there we almost disappeared under the seat. Murder is just everyday pork and beans to Fred’s little group of friends, except of course Helen Walker with whom Fred falls in love while everyone is scrambling around for stolen and hidden money, and if all this sounds silly that’s because it is silly, friends. Mabel Paige and Barbara Pepper are in it too, heaven help them, but you know something — we liked Fred. He was kind of dumb but nice and why let the Fleagles come between him and us, we always say. Your Reviewer Says: We wonder what the writer’s I.Q. is. The Horn Blows At Midnight (Warners) AAUCH as we enjoy Jack Benny, we’ve ' ’ ' got to admit this is a pretty sticky movie that just doesn’t come off. The premise is engaging and so is the cast but too much emphasis was placed on the physical rather than the fantasy and the result is neither shortnin’ bread nor cream puffs. And we might add this is no way to treat a comedian of Benny’s talent. For one thing, the actor is made up to look like a juvenile for some revolting reason, which detracts from the story. And the story has him a trumpeting angel sent to earth to blow his horn at midnight whereupon the earth will disappear. But once here he rims into two other celestial angels that got sidetracked, Angels Allyn Joslyn and John Alexander, and a finageling cigarette girl, played by Dolores Moran, and Benny never does toot that horn. Now if he’d brought a violin and played “'The Bee” there might have been some sense to it all. Alexis Smith, as Benny’s angel girl friend, doesn’t add a thing to the unhappy little affair that ends in one of those falling off high building things that’s older than Benny himself. Your Reviewer Says: We take a gloomy view of this one. China Sky (RKO) |_j ERE we are, customers, back in China I ' with Randy Scott, a doctor in a Chinese hospital, bringing back from the States his bride Ellen Drew. This, of course, proves a mistake, for Ellen immediately throws a monkey wrench into the friendship between Scott and his medical aide, Ruth Warrick, who secretly loves him. In her attempt to escape the horrors of the constant bombings Drew falls into a Nipponese scheme and dies leaving Scott and Warrick to continue on the next page. Anthony Quinn as a guerrilla leader, Carol Thurston as a nurse and Philip Ahn, fine Korean actor, do the best they can with antiquated material. Your Reviewer Says: But we saw all this before. Zombie On Broadway (RKO) NOW it’s Alan .Carney and WcJly Brown who tangle with the zombies for one of the silliest, most ridiculous pictures of the year. The boys, press agents for a night club, advertise a real zombie will appear at the club’s premiere. Afraid of adverse publicity if the boys fail to come through, Sheldon Leonard, owner of the club, dispatches the boys off to Zombieland to dig up a