Showmen's Trade Review (Jan-Mar 1946)

8 SHOWMEN'S TRADE REVIEW, February 16, 1946 Frontier Gun Law Columbia Western with Music 58 mins. AUDIENCE SLANT: (Family) An average Western with music to relieve the dramatic situations. Ought to please followers of this type of picture. BOX-OFFICE SLANT: WiU get by in usual Western runs, doing nothing to impair Ctiarles Starrett's standing or raise it. Cast: Charles Starrett, Tex Harding, Dub Taylor, Jean Steven, Weldon Heyburn, Al Trace and his Silly Symphonists. Credits: Directed by Derwin Abrahams. Screenplay by Bennett Cohen from an original by Victor McLeod. Photography, Glen Cano. Produced by Colbert Clark. Plot: When a masked gang of rustlers known as the "Phantoms" make too much trouble around Mesa City, "The Durango Kid" beats them at their own game. He dons a disguise, too, so no one will know his true identity. He saves an innocent rancher from being tramed as the leader of the gang, and catches the true culprit, who had been masquerading as a crippled newspaper editor. Comment: It is hard to get anything new into Western plots, but at least this film certainly keeps the usual story rolling fast. Starrett changes horses and costumes every few feet, and Weldon Heyburn rushes from a supposedly invalid chair to his horse at night, to lead his gang. In between times, Al Trace and his boys do a good job of letting the audience forget its tenseness by giving out with corny lyrics. Starrett really has the appearance and voice for his role, and his enunciation is much better than the average Western star. Weldon Heyburn does very well by his villain's role. The picture has action — and that's what the Saturday afternoon and small towns audiences want. Cinderella Jones Warner Bros. Comedy 88 mins. AUDIENCE SLANT: (Family) A few laughs, some pleasant performances and some pleasing people add up to just a fair comedy. BOX-OFFICE SLANT: The marquee names are hardly strong enough to provide adequate drawing power, but the outstanding exploitation campaign provided by Warners, now getting under way, may build it into a good attraction. Cast: Joan Leslie, Robert Alda, Julie Bishop, William Prince, S. Z. Sakall, Edward Everett Horton, Charles Dingle, Ruth Donnelly, Elisha Cook, Jr., Hobart Cavanaugh, Charles Amt, Chester Clute, Ed Gargan, Margaret Early, Johnny Mitchell, Mary Dean, Monte Blue, Marianne O'Brien, Marian Martin. Credits: Produced by Alex Gottlieb. Directed by Busby Berkeley. Screenplay by Charles Hoffman from a story by Philip Wylie. Photography, Sol Polito. Plot: Joan Leslie wangles her way into la. men's university by promising to generously endow the institution after she collects an inheritance predicated upon her marriage to a man with the equivalent of an intelligence quotient of at least 150; which is why she wanted to matriculate in a men's college in the first place. Joan is slightly dumb and becomes involved in romantic tangles with professor William Prince and band leader Robert Alda, switching from one to the other. She finally discovers she loves Alda and weds him just under the deadline prescribed in her benefactor's will. Comment: The idea was good, the performers are nice pleasant people, but the picture doesn't measure up to what exhibitors have come to expect from Warner Bros. It is a zany story that transcends the bounds of acceptability. It is neither flesh or fowl — a light Legion of Decency Ratings (For Week Ending Feb. 16, 1946) SUITABLE FOR GENERAL PATRONAGE Roaring Rangers SUITABLE FOR ADULTS ONLY Cinderella Jones Dragonwyck Idea Girl Murder in the Music Hall OBJECTIONABLE IN PART Tangier comedy one minute and the utmost in farce comedy the next, even to the extent of resorting to the principals falling or being pushed into water for a laugh. There are some tuneful songs which are well done, and not much more could be asked from Joan Leslie, Robert Alda, Sakall and the others than they deliver here; but even with these attributes, the film adds up to no more than just a fair comedy. Without the top exploitation campaign dreamed up in the Warner home office and being delivered with gusto by Warners' exploiteers around the country, this would deserve no better than top feature, middle-ofthe-week booking. But those Warner boys probably will do much better with it than this. A check on the "Search for Cinderella" plans should immediately be made by every exhibitor who will play the film. It can be adapted to nearly every exhibition spot to increase business. Romance of the West (Color) PRC Western 58 mins. AUDIENCE SLANT: (Family) Good colorful Western with the customary ingredients for the outdoor fans. BOX-OFFICE SLANT: Second of the series of Eddie Dean color films should do okay in the usual spot. Cast: Eddie Dean, Emmett Lynn, Joan Barton, Forrest Taylor, Robert McKenzie, Jerry Jerome, Stanley Price, Chief Thundercloud, Don Reynolds, Lottie Harrison. Credits : Produced and directed by Robert Emmett. Original screenplay by Frances Kavanaugh. Photography, Marcel LePicard. Color supervision, W. T. Crespinel. Musical director, Carl Hoefle. Plot: Three respected citizens of the town arrange for some renegade whites and outlaw Indians to make trouble on the Indian reservation so that the government will force the Indians of? the land. They plan to get the land because it contains huge deposits of silver, and it is up to Eddie Dean, an Indian agent, to clear up the matter, so that both the Indians and the white folk can live happily together. Comment: Second in the Eddie Dean color series from PRC, this picture is swell fare for the western and outdoor fans, for though it is a little low on action, it has enough eye appeal in the use of color and enough ear appeal in Dean's vocalizing to make it a good offering in the spots where westerns are the order of the day. Colorful and attractive are the background scenes and the color photography is so smooth and rich that it makes everything look perfectly natural, without any glaring highlights. Three song numbers are pleasingly presented by Dean in fine voice and there's enough action in the Cowboy-and-Indian story to hold the interest and keep the yarn from lagging. Credit for the production and direction goes to Robert Emmett, who deserves a hand for the original idea inserted in a formula western when he put a Padre on a horse and made him the third member of the usual triangle who are out helping law and justice. Brief Encounter (Reviewed in London) Univ. (Eagle Lion) Drama 95 mins. AUDIENCE SLANT: (Adult) Cleverly conceived, finely acted and superbly directed adult story of middle-aged indiscretion. BOX-OFFICE SLANTS: Should appeal immensely to discerning audiences, but lack of stars and plot may not attract others. Cast: Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard, Stanley Hollo way and others. Credits: Produced, written and conceived by Noel Coward. Directed by David Lean. A Cine-Guild production. Plot: Celia, respectably married to a North Country businessman, meets Howard, a doctor and also married, when shopping in a nearby city. From this casual acquaintance, a friendship springs up and this develops against their wills into a romance. They know they are wrong in deceiving their families and try to break it off without success. Howard finds the solution in accepting an appointment overseas and sails without the respective partners being any the wiser as to how near they were to the divorce court. Comment: As a film "Brief Encounter" is brilliant, cleverly conceived, finely acted and superbly directed. As a box-office proposition, it is another matter. It is an adult subject and while it should appeal immensely to discerning audiences, the younger moviegoers who form the bulk of the audience may find it rather heavy going. It is a story of middleaged indiscretion (the characters are about 40), and the fact that they nearly go "off the rails" may be frowned upon by Church, Youth and other organizations. Noel Coward's script bristles with brilliant touches and the gentle satirizing of the extravagant use of superlatives in an NSS trailer and the slides when the two principals attend a cinema is one of the funniest sequences in any picture. The direction of David Lean, a comparative newcomer who has graduated since the war from the cutting room, is most interesting and augurs well for the future of this young man. The acting is uniformly good by a cast which has been recruited mainly from the West End stage and is unknown in the United States, with Celia Johnson masterly as the wife drawn between duty and love. There are no spectacle scenes and much of the action takes place within a railroad depot. Other than Coward's name it has little to sell to American audiences. Tarzan and the Leopard Woman RKO Radio Adventure 72 mins. AUDIENCE SLANT: (Family) Tarzan fans, particularly the youngsters, will like it. Others, if they can view it objectively, will be amused rather than excited. BOX-OFFICE SLANT: Where previous Tarzan adventures have done well this will do all right. Suitable for double bill situations. Cast: Johnny Weissmuller, Brenda Joyce, Johnny Sheffield, Acquanetta, Edgar Barrier, Dennis Hoey, Tommy Cook, Anthony Caruso and others. Credits: Produced by Sol Lesser. Associate producer and director, Kurt Neumann. Original story and screenplay by Carroll Young, based upon the characters created by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Photography, Karl Struss. Plot: Caravans have been attacked, ostensibly by leopards, but Tarzan notes discrepan(Contimied on Page 32)