Picture-Play Magazine (1933)

The Screen in Review 01 assignment for any actor. Dorothy Burgess is effective as a gang leader who would capture Mr. Roulien for her own, but Gloria Stuart and Joan Marsh are all but wasted. "Disgraced." Helen Twelvetrees, Bruce Cabot, Adrienne Ames, William Harrigan, Ken Murray, Charles Middleton. "Tell me I'm not a knicknack," pleads Helen Twelvetrees of Bruce Cabot who, it seems, has a way of picking up female knicknacks for pastime. And somehow this stands out as the keynote of the entertainment. Unfortunately there are other lapses, too. One of them is when the hero midway in the picture becomes a thoroughgoing villain. He makes the audience as well as Miss Twelvetrees think he loves her, therefore the deception leaves the spectator uncertain of how to accept Mr. Cabot. This is all the more confusing because the actor is excellent in both extremes. For the rest of it the picture is a conventional, though not undramatic tale of a model betrayed and whose father, a policeman, shoots her seducer while the girl on the witness stand proclaims herself guilty until her parent tricks her into telling the truth. William Harrigan is finely convincing as the father and Miss Ames shows taste and restraint in portraying a society girl besides looking as we like to imagine junior leaguers. Ken Murray is helpful, too, nor is there fault to be found with Miss Twelvetrees's acting. It's just that the picture isn't good enough for the talent enlisted. "The Narrow Corner." Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Patricia Ellis, Dudley Digges, Ralph Bellamy, Arthur Hohl, Henry Kolker, Reginald Owen, William V. Mong, Willie Fung. After the fine impression he made last month in "The Life of Jimmy Dolan," Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., reverts to actory histrionics and gives a meaningless performance. Perhaps the fault is not so much his as the choice of the Somerset Maugham novel for filming. It is literary rather than dramatic, mental more than physical, consequently the action is forced and the motivation not quite clear enough to make a satisfactory picture. However, it has the merit of interesting dialogue even though it leaves some of the characters uncertain and their fate a matter of indifference. They are discovered in the South Seas where Mr. Fairbanks, a derelict with a criminal record, encounters Dudley Digges, a cynical, philosophical doctor whose years in the tropics are chiefly occupied in observing the futilities of mankind — with appropriate comment. This is the most interesting character in the picture and Mr. Digges's acting is brilliantly persuasive. Another example of superior acting is contributed by Arthur Hohl as a shifty, dyspeptic sea cap tain who cringes before men but is brave in wind and storm. Naturally, there's a heroine, Patricia Ellis, who is charming to look upon but whose character isn't brought out enough to mean anything. All in all, the picture is moderately interesting but it quickly fades from memory. "Heroes for Sale." Richard Barthelmess, Aline MacMahon, Loretta Young, Gordon Westcott, Robert Barrat, Berton Churchill, Charles Grapewin, Grant Mitchell, James Murray. You will wait long to see Richard Barthelmess give a better performance than he does in this, but I fear the picture is too grim and disturbing to satisfy the majority. Thoughtful, intelligent, and finely acted throughout, it is depressing, tragic, and inconclusive. Such ingredients are for the minority. Mr. Barthelmess is a returned soldier who >ees another enjoy the honors that rightfully are his. lie is a drug addict, too, as a result of hospi tal treatment, lie loses his job in a bank and is hounded by the law. Although successful in a laundry job. he meets with disaster when a friend invents a labor-saving device. When discharged workers storm the plan! to destroy the machine that has cheated them out of jobs, Mr. Barthelmess is accused of inciting the riot and is sentenced to five years in prison. I lis wife is killed by the mob, too. There is no peace for him when he is released for police warn him to leave town and he goes his weary way, the picture ending with a speech in which he expresses confidence in America and the New Deal. It is hardly conceivable that a man who had suffered so much would have found hope in any deal, new or old. Nevertheless the picture is not dull and Mr. Barthelmess is impressive. Aline MacMahon also shines and Robert Barrat and Gordon Westcott are especially striking. "Best of Enemies." Buddy Rogers, Marian Nixon, FrankMorgan, Joseph Cawthorn, Greta Nissen, Arno Frey, William Lawrence, Anders van Haden. The return of Buddy Rogers to the screen is a perfectly innocuous incident, pleasant, conventional, juvenile, not sufficiently emphatic to renew his contract. The picture is a variation of the familiar friendly enemies and shows . ^J g ' •*■ ,*£\ sW MSS jH '■ """a**"*! maM two fathers, one of them dialectic, constantly at loggerheads while the son of one falls in love with the daughter of the other and the parents are reunited in bickering reconciliation. Mr. Rogers and Marian Nixon are subordinated to the more interestingcharacters and better acting of Frank Morgan and Joseph Cawthorn as the Continued on page 67