Picture Play Magazine (Jul - Dec 1929)

98 _ Continued from page 96 tlicre is any hope for the manager's willingness to help Joe along if his wife will — yes, aren't men beasts? It seemed to me particularly dumb of the wife to have told, but if she hadn't there would have been no suffering and sorrow for anybody. So Joe calls the manager a rat and kills him. For this he is sent to prison, where he cheers his fellow convicts with song, and broadcasts as well. On his release he visits Little Pal in school, and in following his father the boy is swept down by a truck. The doctor whom Joe consults is in love with Joe's wife and his fee is $5,000 for a life-saving operation, but this will be waived if Joe will relinquish the child. So it's just one agony after another for poor Joe, but as intimated above, everything comes out all right. Mr. Jolson sings at least seven songs, Davey Lee repeats the performance so many like, and Marian Nixon nicely plays the faithful, though tactless, wife. Rod La Rocque Speaks. The talkie debut of Rod La Rocque takes place in "The Man and the Moment," opposite beautiful Billie, the dulcet Dove — and he comes through splendidly. I say this because his voice records exactly as it does in conversation, and because he has a role which displays his whimsical banter and that humor which is so much a part of his real self. Miss Dove, in a role less hysterical than in "Careers," is also nice, but it is Mr. La Rocque who evokes the most audible response from audiences, because he makes them laugh. The picture is unimportant, but it is as diverting as one of those glossy society films, with a whipped-cream filling, could be. Michael, a gay philanderer, and Joan, a sheltered snowdrop, marry ; he to extricate himself from a liaison, she to escape the choler of a guardian. But of course Michael's lady friend is not so easily shed. She seeks to ruin Joan's reputation, but Michael somehow saves it by smashing a glass tank in which high society is disporting in an underseas ball a la DeMille. There you have it. Besides the stars, there is Gwen Lee. Made in Germany. Three European favorites appear in a German silent picture called "Hungarian Rhapsody." They are Dita Parlo, Lil Dagover, and Willy Fritsch, who became an American favorite in "The Last Waltz." Players and picture are well worth seeing, if you care for a smoothly directed, carefully acted, and skillfully photographed film of unvarying The Screen in ReVieW charm rather than wrenching moments. Backgrounds of waving wheatfields are beautiful, as well as moonlight dappling the lovers in their trysting place under the trees ; and the prayer of thanksgiving for the harvest is strangely moving. The story is that of a dashing officer too poor to marry the girl he loves, and too proud of his uniform to give it up and go to work. He is drawn into a dangerous flirtation with the wife of the resident baron, and when they are in peril of discovery his sweetheart saves them at the expense of her own reputation. This brings about the officer's awakening to the true worth of the girl, as well as the worthlessness of an idle life. All this has a quality, a feeling, all its own. I hope I have communicated enough to send you to see it. More In Sorrow Than Anger. "Fast Life" is the sort of picture that gives most critics acute pain, and the kind that producers excuse by saying to us, "Poor fish, it's what the public wants." But that doesn't excuse it at all, for if it pleased some one to bring it to the screen, the shallow, theatric story and the bombastic acting could have been toned down and the whole disguised by good taste and restraint. As it is, "Fast Life" is a distressing exhibition of actors allowed to rant at will. I say allowed, because Chester Morris and John St. Polis have acquitted themselves brilliantly in talkies, the former in "Alibi" and the latter as Mary Pickford's father in "Coquette." But you would never guess it from their actions and utterances in the new film. So we must hold it against the director for giving them a free hand. Mr. Morris is Paul Palmer, the governor's son, whose friend, Douglas Stratton, is about to be electrocuted for a murder Paul committed. Which means that we must pay the penalty by watching all the old, familiar scenes — the pleas to the governor, the singing prisoners, the longdrawn-out march to the chair, from which, incidentally, the prisoner escapes without explanation. But this is merely to prolong the agonized contortions of Mr. Morris as he struggles against the temptation to "tell all," and thus ruin bis father's political chances at the cost of his friend's liberation and his own life. Now, this is a melodramatic situation of the kind known as strong, and it might have conveyed the full intent had the director forgotten the antiquated theater and been decently generous with his use of the soft pedal. But the writhing of Mr. Morris, his grimaces and contortions con veyed nothing to me except envy of an actor having a sweatingly good time tussling with a hammy scene. There is a lot more to the picture than this, but I found the events that led up to Mr. Morris' selfish pleasure equally shallow. Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., not at his best, is the falsely accused murderer, and Loretta Young, as his wife, is appealing, but the innuendoes cast upon her relationship to her husband aren't pleasant. Starving in Silk. "Street Girl" bored me intensely, but I heard others laughing with glee, so you can join them, or sustain me in my task of trying to tell you what the picture is about. There really is no effort attached to that. So far as plot goes, there is almost none. Nothing at all to cause even a backward child to ask who's who, or what's what. But there is an effort necessary for me to remember the least entertainment in it. So bear with me. It seems that a dear, little girlie named Freddy is starving on the streets of New York in silk stockings, plump chin, heavy make-up, and a permanent wave. She is encountered by a young musician in a jazz band, who takes her to the room he shares with three companions and persuades her to remain by the simple expedient of curtaining off a corner with a sheet. Whereupon Freddy becomes the little mother of the quartet whom she quaintly nicknames "Spring," "Summer," "Fall," and "Winter." She cooks, presses their clothes and manages their careers. Though homeless, penniless, and all else the night before, she goes to a swell restaurant managed by an old friend and persuades him to employ the quartet at a large salary. She herself performs, too, cutely playing the violin as she sways from table to table. Then the prince of the mythical kingdom of which she is a native arrives, and his fervor on recognizing Freddy as a subject causes him to kiss her on the forehead. So the young musician becomes jealous and— did you put me on the witness stand I could remember no more. It's all a blur of singing, dancing, wise-cracking, and so forth. But, as I said, people did laugh — perhaps from enjoyment, perhaps not. ' Betty Compson, as Freddy, is not at her happiest in a sugary role, but Jack Oakie, as one of the jazz boys, i.5 as good as his lines permit. John Harron, Ned Sparks, and Guy Buccola are the other "boys," this probably being the first time Mr. Sparks has been so denominated in the last quarter century. Ivan Lebedeff is le Prince.