Photoplay (Jul-Dec 1938)

• WHITE BANNERS-Warners 0 TERN and stuffed with preachments, this sad story has a few things in its favor. One is manly Jackie Cooper's nice acting as a sixteen-year-old who needs regeneration. Out of the storm to a poor inventor's family comes Fay Bainter, whose saintly qualities get sticky at times; she takes over the household, eggs the professorinventor, Claude Rains, on to devising the first electric refrigerator, nurses Bonita Granville through pneumonia and gets a glint in her eye periodically when she sees Jackie. This is because, in reality, he's her illegitimate son. Out of all this comes a series of lectures on the "turn the other cheek" philosophy; Jackie's conversion into a young scientist; and a fine renunciation scene when the boy's father returns. * TROPIC HOLIDAY-Paramount Producer Arthur hornblow, jr., deserves a hand-embroidered sombrero for this comedy musical. It is swell summer fare. It is also timely, with the headlines screaming Mexico. And Mexico it is— not a gun-toting revolutionary in sight, but a sleepy coastal town, where Ray Milland, a screwy Hollywood writer, goes to get an idea for a screen romance. He finds love with Dorothy Lamour, a native in a skirt this time — with ruffles! Fireworks pop when Ray's screen star lady friend learns she's been jilted. The tropical settings, the Ensenada Singers, the Dominguez Brothers' Marimba Band, Tito Guizar's songs — all are elegant. Bob Burns and Martha Raye, both toned down, are consequently really funny. THE NATIONAL MOTION PICTURES • HOLIDAY-Columbia WlTH all the fuss about Katharine Hepburn and exhibitors complaining that she is not box-office, this has a special interest in that it presents her in a more appealing fashion than ever before. The hurried, accented speech, so susceptible to parody, has almost disappeared; she is warm and sincere and distinctly interesting. ''Holiday" itself has always been a distinguished story, although in 1938 it will seem a little dated. You can't ask a recession-ridden audience to weep over the unhappiness of people who are so filthy rich they live in a house like an apartment hotel, and don't know what to do with their money. Cary Grant, inimitably reassuring in this somewhat solemn shriek against the evil of piling up riches, plays the philosophical young businessman who falls in love with Doris Nolan, daughter of millions. He wants to get enough money together to take a holiday and find himself; she wants him to go into her father's bank and slave. There follows nearly an hour and a half of discussion about this, with Miss Hepburn, Doris' rebellious elder sister, pulling for Cary — whom she, unhappily, loves also. This version is much longer than the one Ann Harding made, and much more talkative. George Cukor has directed it at a leisured pace and each portrayal is a masterpiece in itself, especially that of Lew Ayres as the disillusioned and drunken younger brother. Edward Everett Horton and Jean Dixon both do a sympathetic job as amiable, if poor, friends of Grant's. * ALEXANDER'S RAGTIME BAND20th Century-Fox Mr. ZANUCK calls this an American Cavalcade told in music and there can be no better way to describe it. Alter a series of mediocre productions this gorgeous picture is a reminder that Hollywood can still give out with the best entertainment in the world. Filled with nostalgic melody, lavishly created, splendidly directed and with a cast of beautiful and talented people, "Alexander's Ragtime Band" is directly appealing to every type of theater-goer. The story begins on the Barbary Coast thirty years ago when a Nob Hill renegade to ragtime, Tyrone Power, discovers the music of Irving Berlin's "Ragtime Band" in a honky tonk and introduces it. Don Ameche plays the piano in Tyrone's little group and Alice Faye, a cheap-looking cafe singer, does the warbling. As Power adjusts her to his standards of taste, love comes to them; the band rises to success, Alice becomes a musical-comedy star and Ameche turns song writer. Then War — Tyrone and Alice quarrel, he goes to the front, and she marries Don. After the Armistice Tyrone returns to build Alexander's band once more to phenomenal heights and the picture culminates romantically and melodically at Carnegie Hall. The thread of story is not too exceptional, although it has one magnificent climax in the renunciation scene. More important is that one man's music, played in 1938, can recapture so completely three decades of American social history. Ethel Merman, Jack Haley, Jean Hersholt, Helen Westley and others deliver exceptional performances. • LORD JEFF-M-G-M OINCE Freddie Bartholomew has grown out of the Eton collar stage, his studio has been hard put to find perfect stories for him. This one seems to be a kind of answer, although in it he must again share all honors (as in "The Devil Is a Sissy" and "Captains Courageous") with that fine young actor, Mickey Rooney. Freddie plays a rich orphan boy who's the dupe of jewel thieves. When he's caught, he's sent to a British merchant marine training school where he meets Mickey, boy petty officer. Antagonism grows between the two kids, and Freddie's adjusted adolescent mind leads him into trouble from which Mickey, unwilling, but spurred by a sense of duty, must rescue him. It's a story of young regeneration and the growth of friendship. Charles Coburn and Herbert Mundin both have excellent opportunities and use them, but Gale Sondergaard (still remembered for her knockout performance in "Anthony Adverse") is not at her best. The most consistent scene stealer is a tiny lad named Terry Kilburn, who, despite Rooney's salty performance, and the brave little appeal of Bartholomew, succeeds wholly in capturing the audience's heart. Director Sam Wood's direction of the marine scenes in the English Navy is as fine as in those he created for "Navy Blue and Gold" and will hold interest for any one in these days of "big navy" talk. The entire picture is so pure, you may bring the entire family. They will enjoy it immensely. 44