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The Screen in Review
41
the stage for something like fifty weeks. He brings to the screen all the facility gained from long experience in the part and his acting eclipses any previous effort. The result is an extraordinarily sensitive performance which will delight those who can project themselves into the mood of the piece and irk those who cannot.
But there can be no doubt of superior talent in all departments of production and fine restraint in re-creating the atmosphere of eighteenth-century England. No other Hollywood picture has achieved so lifelike a replica of the period of flounces and furbelows, nor is it believable that any director other than Frank Lloyd, who also made "Cavalcade," could have refrained from adding Hollywood touches in telling the gentle, rueful story.
Briefly, it deals with introspective Peter Standish who feels that he is a misfit in the twentieth century and who is magically transported back to the eighteenth where he thinks he belongs. This is brought about when he inherits a house in Berkeley Square, London, and the ghosts of yesterday become realities. The gentle sadness of the piece comes when Peter discovers himself hopelessly out of tune with the fancied glamour of a bygone day, and sadness becomes heartbreak when he falls in love and finds he cannot marry because the girl belongs in a different age.
Heather Angel in this role is utterly beguiling. Beauty, charm, and ability make her one of the really worth while discoveries of the new season.
"My Weakness."
Lilian Harvey, Lew Ayres, Charles Biitterworth, Sid Silvers, Henry Travers, Harry Langdon, Irene Bentley. Director : David Bntler.
The first Hollywood picture of the much-heralded Lilian Harvey is mild — too mild to climax brass-band publicity. It is not exactly Miss Harvey's fault, lint that of tepid material. She has individuality, cleverness, and charm and her voice in speech and song is unusually pleasing. While she works too hard at projecting these gifts for the complete comfort of her audience and becomes self-conscious in the effort, undoubtedly she has something more to offer than is provided by her vehicle.
It is a Cinderella story in which a slavey becomes a society enchantress, but it is neither funny nor touching enough to qualify as first rate and in some respects it is embarrassing in its shortcomings. Chief of these is rhymed dialogue, perhaps the most clumsily childish ever heard on Continued on page 51
Heather Angel makes a hit in "Berkeley
Square," and Leslie Howard gives his
finest performance.
"My Weakness," though mildly diverting,does not exploit Lilian Harvey as she deserves, and Lew Ayres is out of his element in a musical.