Silver Screen (May-Oct 1934)

56 Silver Screen for July 1934 to <jet good snapshots now with JIFFY KODAK and VERICHROME FILM Reviews [Continued from page 53] THERE'S a new way to take snapshots— an easier way. With a Jiffy Kodak . . . the smart folding camera that's so simple to use. At the touch of a button the Jiffy leaps out — ready for action. A click of the shutter and you've made a picture. Smartly designed in metal and enamels— as trim as a lady's compact. The Jiffy comes in two sizes • . . for 2V2 x 414 inch pictures, $9 . . . for 214 x 3!4 inch pictures, $8. If it isn't an Eastman, it isn't a Kodak. BUCK ¥ YOU'LL get better pictures with Verichrome Film. In the glaring sun or the porch's shade— this film gets the picture. The cheaper the camera — the slower the lens — the more the need for Verichrome. Load your camera with Verichrome for better pictures. Eastman Kodak Co., Rochester, New York. who reaches the age of fifty and discovers that he has millions but none of that joie de vivre. He yearns to play Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata," to roam the world in quest of adventure, and to recapture his youth in the love of a beautiful woman. Frank Morgan, who's just about the best, plays the millionaire, and Doris Lloyd plays his wife, who advises him to see a doctor when he expresses a desire to live. So Frank finds sympathy and understanding and his lost youth in an actress, Elissa Landi, and is pathetically happy— until one day along comes Joseph Schildkraut, a mad, impetuous young composer. Frank realizes that the two thrilling young people were made for each other, so gallantly he relinquishes his claim on Elissa and returns to his wife— and age. One of the best of the serious pictures. BULLDOG DRUMMOND STRIKES BACK Rating: 77 0 Ronnie's Here, Girls— Twentieth Century HERE'S a hey nonny nonny and a hot cha cha murder mystery which is just about the gayest, most delightful picture you have seen in years. That fascinating Ronald Colman again plays Bulldog Drummond, but this time with his tongue in his cheek and a naughty glint in his eye, and you'll just go cur-razy about him all over again. Charles Butterworth is his side-kick and we don't have to tell you how droll the Butterworth humor is. Charlie has been given such perfect lines and puts them over so hilariously that he fairly walks away with the picture. Then, too, there's Loretta Young looking so beautiful that she just must be that "dream walking" that you've been singing about— and our favorite comedienne, Una Merkel, coyly luring Mr. Butterworth— and Warner Oland being so so sinister and oriental, and C. Aubrey Smith so grand and British. The cast is perfect, the dialogue is perfect, the direction perfect— oh, well, the whole darned thing is perfect. Here's a bird's-eye view of the story— but don't think we're going to tell you all the fun. A rich oriental prince has slipped in a carload of furs on the "Bombay Girl," which he wishes to sell in England. The skipper of the boat is mysteriously murdered and his wife kidnapped— but it is the niece who has the valuable radiogram that tells the world that a sailor died of cholera on the boat. Loretta gives Ronnie the radiogram— which is in code— and the fun begins. There is a bell sequence which is just about the funniest thing ever seen in pictures. And what's more, along with all this comedy is a swell air of mystery. Oh. you'll like it— and you can safely bring all the family. STRICTLY DYNAMITE i Rating: 53 0 Disa and Data Comedy— RKO SCHNOZZLE DURANTE is given the key to the city this time and simply romps all over the place in the well-known Durante manner. Jimmy plays a funny man on the radio, with Lupe as his team mate, and that gives them both a swell chance to put over a couple of songs. The picture starts out with a nifty plot, but it sort of gets lost among the radio gags. Norman Foster plays a serious young author who thinks he's writing serious stuff— but it's funny to everybody else. Marian Nixon, his wife, interests an agent. Bill Gargan, who gets Jimmy, the radio comic, to sign him up for several hundred a week as his ghost-writer. Well, success goes to Norman's head, and Lupe leads him astray, and Marian's awfully upset about it all and turns to Gargan, who offers a willing shoulder for her to weep on. But of course in the last reel he sees the error of his ways. Norman gives a grand performance as the bewildered young author. Light and amusing, and if you go for Durante you'll be entertained. MANHATTAN MELODRAMA Rating: 28° Don't Blame the Cast— MetroGoldwy n -May er CLARK GABLE'S last picture is rather disappointing— maybe it's just because we are sort of fed up with gangsters; even Dillinger rather bores us. Maybe you don't feel that way— and maybe you will like it. There's a prologue on a Hudson River boat, where we see a terrible fire and many people drowned. Among the rescued are two little sobbing boys, who, parentless after the tragedy, sort of pal together and bring themselves up on New York's famous East Side. One boy is a born gambler and crook, the other has a high moral sense and great ambition to become a lawyer. They grow up, and sure enough the little boy who was the best crap shooter on Bleecker street turns out to be Clark Gable, who now operates a swanky gambling club. The studious little lad becomes none other than debonair William Powell, who is running for the office of district attorney. After all these years the boys meet again— and Myrna Loy, Clark's girl, falls desperately in love with Powell, the first real gentleman she has ever met. Of course, Clark kills a man in a debt argument and Bill has to try him for murder. And so it goes It's a;ood old melodrama, but we do like our comedy. MANY HAPPY RETURNS Rating: 59° Goofy— Paramount WELL, they turned Grade loose on this one and she certainly runs riot. If you're one of the millions of Grade Allen and George Burns' fans this is right down your alley, and what a laughing time you'll have of it. Grade is completely gaga and doesn't keep her trap shut from beginning to end. George Barbier plays her poor suffering dad, who has her psycho-analysed, and the psycho-analyst decides that Grade has a leaping libido or something and should marry George Burns, the radio announcer of Guy Lombardo's orchestra. Mr. Barbier offers George ten dollars a mile to marry Gracie and take her as far away as possible, and as George is on his way to Hollywood with the Lombardo orchestra he takes Gracie along and figures out his mileage all the way across the continent, while Gracie disturbs everyone from an upper berth. Well, it seems that Mr. Barbier's sane daughter, Joan Marsh, is on her way to Hollywood on the same train, having won a beauty contest and a studio contract. Rather than have her go into the movies, Mr. Barbier has her kidnapped along with her fiance— and so, just as you suspected, the insane Gracie enters Hollywood as the Masked Beauty. Her goings-on at the studio are something elegant, and they can't keep her mouth shut long enough to have a perfect "take." Gracie then gets entangled with a couple of gangsters and, finally, Papa Barbier arrives and raises the ante to thirty dollars a mile if only George will take his goofy daughter to a foreign country. [Continued on page 58]