Screenland (Nov 1929-Apr 1930)

52 Critical Sweetie HERE'S the first collegiate movie musical comedy with Nancy Carroll, Helen Kane, Jack Oakie, and a new boy, Stanley Smith, participating. It's very juvenile entertainment; but unless you are an old fogy who hates boys and girls and can't bear football games, you'll enjoy it. At least it doesn't pretend to be anything but very young and very fresh. A chorus girl, Nancy Carroll, inherits a boys' school and brings a little bit of Broadway to the classic halls of learning. And who'll complain? Jack Oakie enrolls and changes Alma Mater to Alma Mammy, and has the time of his life. I had mine when Helen Kane sang her balcony song to a frightened Romeo. Miss Kane is the audible Clara Bow. 1 am all in favor of having her starred. Let's get up a petition. Screenland christened her 'Sugar' Kane and now she's being billed that way. Leave it to us to pick them! Why Bring That Up? I'LL bite, why? Moran and Mack are laugh experts in their line but is their line an elaborate screen revue? Why not make a series of short subjects of these two popular black-face artists and let us listen to their early-bird discussions and have our fun and then let us go home? Of course I know that "Why Bring That Up?" will attract all the admirers of the team, and if they like the surrounding scenery, then tell me I'm wrong. Not that the musical comedy atmosphere in this picture is inferior to that in a dozen other offerings; but the novelty has worn off. Records and radio have brought the Moran-Mack dialog into the home and family clowns have repeated it until it really seems that the team should find a new line. Or the family clowns will have to go to work. SCREENLAND Comment Her Private Affair NOT, as the title might imply, a frisky farce, but a tense drama involving a married lady's indiscretion. In fact, this married lady is so indiscreet as to commit murder justifiable, perhaps, but nevertheless murder. An innocent man is accused of her crime; her husband is a learned judge; she has a conscience and so she suffers. Since Ann Harding is the harassed lady, you will be interested and even touched by her troubles. Miss Harding is perhaps the loveliest of the stage stars to crash Hollywood; she has youth, ability, and her own particular brand of potent charm. What I like best about her is her apparent unconcern with her own beauty. She has the naturalness usually associated only with plain women. She gives a notable performance in this picture, and opposite her is her husband, Harry Bannister, a good actor. And those love scenes are real. The Painted Angel 1AST month Screenland told you that Billie Dove was talking for the first time on the screen. This month I'm j telling you that you'll hear Billie sing and see her dance for the first time in "The Painted Angel." Watch next month's Screenland to see what Billie will be up to next! It was in Professor Ziegfeld's Follies that Billie received her initiation into Missus Terpsichore's and Old Mammy Vocal Chord's realm, but here this beautiful lady is placed in lavish surroundings that almost out-Ziegfeld Ziggy. And Billie acquits herself in great shape leave that to her. As a night-club queen, she leads a beauty chorus, bosses the girls behind the scenes, and makes Eddie Lowe s life miserable as well as eventful, besides stirring up strife among the men-folk. Wait until you see Billie s wild-west number, which she puts over with a bang and a boopa-doop.