Showmen's Trade Review (Jul-Sep 1943)

26 SHOWMEN'S TRADE REVIEW August 21, 1943 So This Is Washington {Continued from Page 24) their demonstration fails because Abner, through a bump on the head, becomes an amnesia victim. After they get back to Pine Ridge and Abner's memory is restored, they receive word that the invention isn't rubber at all, but it is important to the v^'ar-winning effort. Comment: This is a creditable follow-up on the other Lum & Abner pictures and will build more friends for these two small-town philosophers. It is a homespun tale of their experiences away from Pine Ridge that should do well among their fans and in the theatres where stories of small town life are popular. Added to the Lum & Abner draw, is the word-of-mouth it will create by the sequences in Washington, where they rib the Congress. Presented with a tongue-inthe-cheek attitude, even the sophisticates will get a laugh out of the way they give advice on a park bench to the Senators and Congressmen, who, beset with problems even as you and I, come to these two backwoods philosophers for a solution. Both men are excellent, actually living the characters which they have created. A standout in the supporting cast is Alan Mowbray, who as the head of the committee to discover new inventions, gives the part the right touch of comedy. Due credit must be given to the writers of the story, for the touch of originality the yarn holds and to Director Raymond McCarey for giving it everything pointed for fun. Local organizations working for the war effort should be willing to cooperate, especially any place that has to do with rubber or tires, since the story is about synthetic rubber. Cooperation of broadcasting station for plugs before and after the Lum & Abner program, would prove invaluable. Teaser ads about coming to these two philosophers for advice on your troubles, would attract attention. The Shrine of Victory 20th-Fox Documentary 45 mins. AUDIENCE SLANT: (Family) Its interest is wholly "educational" and as an informative screen document about Greece and the people of that ancient land, it is fascinating information for all peoples of the United Nations. BOX-OFFICE SLANT: A picture that can be built up to draw added interest for any program, regardless of the feature with which it is presented. Cast: Officers and men of the Greek Navy, including Vrassidas Capernaros. Credits: A Casanave-Artlee Production. Produced at Ealing Studios, London, England. Directed by Charles Hasse. Commentary by Frank Owen and Angus MacPhail. Produced by Cavalanti. Plot: A petty ofificer of the Greek navy reconstructs in narrative form the story of the peaceful life of the people of Greece before they were attacked by the legions of Mussolini and later ruthlessly crushed by the Nazis. His story reaches its climax when, after serving his people through sabotage of the Nazi occupying forces' rule of horror, he is forced to flee Greece and makes his way to England, where he becomes a petty officer aboard a warship manned by his countrymen and fighting with the British Navy. Comment: A most eloquent statement of the part which Greece and her people have played in this war, into which they were plunged by the lust for plunder of the Axis. The picture in style is a sort of super travelogue pointed up with facts about the global war as it has been carried into the historic land of Greece. For all peoples of the United Nations this is a picture of great interest and a picture that can serve, as only the screen medium can, a source of popular understanding of a country that was among the first to stand up to the might of would-be world conquerors. There are many moments wherein the interest and movement could have been fortified by shortening of some of the footage, but on the whole the picture is one worthy of exhibitor consideration, and especially of strong selling to bring to the theatre many people who are not among the regular patrons of movie shows. Enlisting the interest of leaders in patriotic as well as educational groups of the locality should prove a great help to arousing enthusiasm for your showing of "The Shrine of Victory." The Adventures of a Rookie RKO Radio • Comedy 65 mins. (Block No. 1, 1943-44) AUDIENCE SLANT: (Family) Good clean fun picturing the lighter side of Army life in the training camps. BOX-OFFICE SLANT: Will bolster lower half of double bill. Nice company for heavy drama. Cast: Wally Brown, Alan Carney, Richard Martin, Erford Gage, Margaret Landry, Patti Brill, Rita Corday, Robert Anderson and others. Credits: Produced by Bert Gilroy. Directed by Leslie Goodwins. Screenplay by Edward James. Original story and adaptation by William Bowers and M. Coates Webster. Plot: Three fellows from different walks of life are drafted and the sequence of humorous events lead them into all sorts of hilarious mixups including a two-week quarantine in the home of a girl friend with a l)unch of gals and their tough top kick, several sessions on the spud pile, the guardhouse and the hospital ward of a troop transport while they are AWOL from camp. Comment: A rather run of the mill war comedy confined to training camp life. This is the first film for the new team, Wally Brown, a fast talking actor with more ideas that lead to trouble than you can shake a stick at and Alan Carney a big fat dumb guy with Laughtonesque features. It will be well for exhibitors to watch carefully the audience acceptance of their style of comedy. Given better than the average material with which they work in this show they may go places as a team. Carney does two good impersonations of Edward G. Robinson and Charles Laughton and certainly looks the part of the latter. Spot it with a tear jerker away from the war theme. Catchline: "A Laugh for Every Spud and they've got millions of 'em." Lassie Gome Home (Technicolor) MGM Drama 90 mins. AUDIENCE SLANT: (Family) Any doglover will go nuts over this picture, and that includes a lot of people. BOX-OFFICE SLANT: There is a readymade audience for Roddy McDowall and this type of picture. Cast: Roddy McDowall, Donald Crisp, Elsa Lanchester. Dame May Whitty, Edmund Gwenn, Nigel Bruce, Elizabeth Taylor, Ben Webster, J. Patrick O'Malley, Alan Napier, Arthur Shields, John Rogers. Alec Craig, and Lassie. Credits: Produced by Samuel Marx. Directed by Fred M. Wilcox. Screenplay by Hugo Butler, from the novel by Eric Knight (film is dedicated to Knight, who was recently killed on war duty). Plot: Roddy's father, Donald Crisp, and his mother, Elsa Lanchester, sell Lassie, the beautiful collie, to the Duke (Nigel Bruce) because they are so poor they cannot feed the dog and themselves too. After Lassie escapes twice from the Duke's kennel and comes back to Roddy, she is sent from Yorkshire several hundred miles north to Scotland. She escapes once more and begins the trek back home. Her adventures en route and her final arrival, plus a happy ending when the Duke gives Crisp a job, comprise the bulk of the story. Comment: Beautiful Technicolor shots of the highland country form a background for Lassie's remarkable trip back home, and the haardships and adventures undergone by the dog hold the interest as much as a highly dramatic story. The handkerchiefs will be out for "Lassie Come Home," and this time not so much for Roddy as for the dog herself. Lassie is truly the star of this picture, and fully half the footage finds her in the frame alone. This is a fact to be noted, for it makes the film different from the earlier McDowall efforts. It is not the case of a boy and his dog, but of a dog and his master. Therefore, make every effort to publicize Lassie along with Roddy. The boy star's fans will come anyway, but there is a vast audience to be tapped who remember other collie stories by Jack London and Albert Payson Terhune. An obvious street ballyhoo would be to have a boy lead around a collie (if you can get a really good-looking animal), with the dog tagged "Lassie" and the boy without advertising. The Seventh Victim RKO Radio Horror 71 mins. (Block 1, '43-44) AUDIENCE SLANT: (Adult) Good atmosphere, camera work and a few effective melodramatic incidents, but on the whole a story so vague in its import and unpleasant in its implications that average picturegoers are not likely to like it. BOX-OFFICE SLANT: Essentially a support niunber for some strong and very gay headline feature of the musical or straight comedy type. Cast: Tom Conway, Jean Brooks, Isabel Jewell, Kim Hunter, Evelyn Brent, Erford Gage, Marguerita Sylva, Chef Milani, Mary Newton and others. Credits: Produced by Val Lewton. Directed by Mark Robson. Written by Charles O'Neal and DeWitt Bodeen. Director of photography, Nicholas Musuraca. Plot: Kjm Hunter is being educated at a boarding school by her older sister, whose sudden disappearance and failure to keep up the tuition payments, sends the girl in search of her somewhat famous sister. In New York the girl finds no trace, though there are many who tell of having recently seen her sister. The search leads the girl to a young lawyer who, it develops, is married to the lady who vanished, and his only contact with his wife is through Tom Conway, a doctor who claims that the woman's physical and mental state makes it impossible for the husband to see her. Various experiences and adventures result in the young lawyer and the young sister falling in love, and when the older sister, succumbing to a neurotic urge, and the urgings of a group of "Devil Worshippers" with whom she is involved, commits suicide, these two profess their mutual love. Comment: This picture is in the vein which Val Lewton has been developing with some interesting results in such predecessors as "The Cat People" and "I Walked With a Zombie." Here the eerie atmosphere is shrewdly, but laboriously, built up with camera work that suggests impending doom, disaster and thrilling adventures for the principals. That this promise of action is not fulfilled, naturally, dulls, if indeed it does not wholly cancel, much that is accomplished in the way of interesting direction. The whole basis of the plot has a wormwood flavor of mental aberration as the motive for the action of the lady who vanished, and who, while conspicuous by her absence from most of the scenes, is also a most conspicuous element in the plot. If instead of some double