Picture Play Magazine (Jul - Dec 1929)

00 The Screen in ReVieW "Womantrap." 1 ' TE ^* |H^Ppml^H| ■ lit m^^_ ■ 4» ^^H ^rW^w^ ' ' flU jjuL, ' • ^p* , 1 1 ;Mx MS "^^ it ^ 1 [J a ■R*'* . * flssSI ■ "Our Modern Maidens. "Big Time. and his sister and their father. But she refuses to give up Rossitcr, even when she hears the hoy declare that he should marry a woman in his own set. Finally the children are made to repent their interference and realize that Joyce is a thoroughbred. This gives but slight inkling of the plot, often tense in its development, and not a hint of the gay, sophisticated character studies contributed by Charles Ruggles and Betty Garde. And I'm afraid that even my unbounded enthusiasm doesn't do justice to the loveliness, charm, and skill of Miss Colbert. Please see her and decide if "The Ancient Mariner" isn't right. Introducing Winnie Lightner. Though "Gold Diggers of Broadway" throws no new light on the subject of either gold digging or Broadway, the attractive title calls attention to another musical comedy of the films. Like "On With the Show" it is entirely in color and this, together with dialogue, singing, and dancing, will put the picture over with those who are easily diverted by entertainment of the lightest sort. It frequently reveals pronounced optical beauty, it has moments of hilarity and there is at least one song hit, "Tip Toe Through the Tulips With Me." Yes, it has all these elements of popularity, but — and I may as well break down and confess all — it made me restive when it attempted to tell its pale, little story. When musical comedy was rampant, I had no kick coming, because one can think of something else if there isn't enough on the screen to hold a vagrant mind. But when plot peeps timidly between the interstices of swaying choruses, the spectator sends his intelligence to meet and welcome it. If the story is anaemic, old-fashioned, and not worth while, he retires within himself and lets others applaud the dancing, singing, and choral groupings. That's exactly what happened to me in watching "Gold Diggers of Broadway." We thought the original comedy sophisticated and pungent on the stage nine years ago, because it was a cynical exhibit of the private lives of show girls, with enough sure-fire sentimentality to make it popular with those who overlooked its worldly implications. But times have changed and gold-digging chorines are looked upon casually nowadays. So the yarn of wealthy Stephen Lee, who sets out to rescue his juvenile relative from a mercenary chorus girl, and ends by falling in love with one himself — no, no Nanette, this won't do for the merry year of 1929. Ah, but there are compensations. A new one materializes every time Winnie Lightner appears on the scene. She is a rowdy comic, late of musical comedy and vaudeville. Possessed of the enviable quality of disarming criticism by the sheer gusto of her clowning, Miss Lightner adds to it a warmly human friendliness that makes you feel it wouldn't be right to utter a word of reproach if she spilled the soup down your back. She saved the show for me — she and Lilyan Tashman in the role of a ritzy chorus girl. Conway Tearle's return to the screen emphasizes the well-worn axiom that time cannot be stayed in its flight, even by color photography, and that disdainful acting no longer evokes enthusiasm. Nancy Welf ord forsakes " the stage to play the heroine coolly, capably and colorlessly, in spite of all the color surrounding her. And Ann Pennington, the dancer, also leaves the stage to its fate to challenge the camera, but exhibits little of the dancing that has made her famous. Familiars such as William Bakewell, Albert Gran, Gertrude Short, Lee Moran, and Nelly Edwards are pleasant to see in their proper element, and Nick Lucas, from the stage and radio, is a sort of crooning interlocutor. Such Is the Kingdom of Heaven. Frequently an unpretentious picture has the charm denied a big one, but not often is a trite story lifted into realms of greatness by the acting of a single performer. But Lee Tracy, the stage actor, does just this with "Big Time," the film which accomplishes his debut. Though just another backstage story of a vaudeville hoofer who deserts his wife for a blonde menace, his new partner, Mr. Tracy invests it with such intimacy, reality, and poignance that his performance ranks with the best the screen has yielded this season, and the picture becomes a triumph of a lesser sort. With such gifts as Mr. Tracy brings to it, I should like to call it a