Silver Screen (Feb-Oct 1935)

54 Silver Screen for October 1935 PICTURE THERMOMETER Degrees of Quality Perfect "Alice Adams" "She Married Her Boss" "China Seas" "Diamond Jim" "The Crusades" J"Sleamboal Round the Bend" 'We're In The Money" "Bonnie Scotland" ''The Return of Peter Grimm" "Every Night At Eight"-! "Little Big Shot" J" "The Man On The Flying Trapeze" "Bright Lights" —100 — Remark able —90 — Excellent —80 — Don't — Miss —70 — Worth — Seeing —60 — Good — Entertain — ment —50 ■ — Pleasing —40 — Not so -30 Reviews OF PICTURES SEEN ing back sobs— you and you and I all have very poignant memories of similar parties. And praise must also go to Fred Stone, who makes his picture debut, after having rather a discouraging time of it in Hollywood. He is perfection itself as Alice's father. And at no time have I ever seen a better mother in films than Ann Shoemakershe's definitely not the conventional mother that we're used to on the screen, but the realistic mother that we're used to in our homes. And there's Frank Albertson turnj ing in a first rate performance as Alice's abrupt brother, and Fred MacMurray as Alice's "young man" whom she almost loses. In case you think I'm the enthusiastic type you should have seen that preview audience. I wouldn't be at all surprised if they were still applauding. EVERY NIGHT AT EIGHT Rating: 6i°— By All Means Dial In— W anger-Paramount SWELL entertainment with a radio background, nothing to strain the I Q, but with plenty of laughs, so what more do you want? George Raft, playing a good boy, has a small band he is trying to put over on an amateur radio hour (Shades of Major Bowes). Patsy Kelly, Alice Faye and Frances Langford are also trying to make the try-outs, and George gets interested in the gals, manages them and puts them right over on the big time with himself. Walter Wanger, who produced this picture, has evidently been hearing my loud complaints about Patsy Kelly, viz., that she is never given enough footage in pictures, for Massa Walter gives Patsy her first big break, and just as you and I suspected Miss Kelly steals the show. Patsy may not be the best comedienne in the world, but until a better comes along Patsy will distinctly do. Alice Faye and Frances Langford both put over some nifty songs and both are tasty dishes. Frances Langford, fresh from Broadway, has the smallest waist in Hollywood, and one of the best torch song voices. You'll be extremely pleased with this picture. CHINA SEAS Rating: 85 "—Melodrama De Luxe— M-G-M LTERE'S your Clark Gable, girls, so he* -L manish it takes your breath away just to look at him. Clark plays the tough captain of a British passenger-freighter on the China Seas and, boy, is he tough. But the louder he yells the better his crew likes him, and the better Jean Harlow, playing one of her inimitable ladies of easy virtue, loves him. She sails on his boat, and so does Wally Beery, who plays the front-man for as wicked a bunch of Malay pirates as ever you saw. There's a cargo of gold on the boat and Wally tips off these murderous pirates, and the passengers are treated to a great deal of excitement. Also on the boat are C. Aubrey Smith, the owner of the shipping line, and Rosalind Russell, pretty young widow, and the nice girl in Clark's past. Does Jean burn! Clark of course throws her over at once and gets himself shaved and engaged to the English girl. Plenty going-on on the China Seas all right. And just as if Miss Harlow and a bunch of cut-throats weren't enough, along comes a typhoon that will definitely end all typhoons, with the steam roller on the lower deck breaking away from its moorings, and threatening to crush the boat. Clark's fight with the steam roller will go down in cinema history. Lewis Stone plays an excellent bit as a third mate who proves he isn't a coward when the right moment comes. Robert Benchley plays a drunk that will have you in stitches if you like the Benchlev brand of humor, and you'd better say you do be ALICE ADAMS Rating: 95 °— Bring on the Academy Award— RKO HERE, at last, is the perfect performance. Katharine Hepburn's "Alice" is so hauntingly beautiful, so cruelly, but hu-morously, true to life that it will remain in your memory, long after you have forgotten the other pictures of 1935. It is by far Hepburn's best picture and best performance, even topping her "Morning Glory," which won the Academy Award two years ago. Booth Tarkington's Alice was rather a dull, stupid girl, but Hepburn makes Alice a sensitive, imaginative girl, who is always striking a divinely amusing attitude, and so deeply do you feel for Alice that you die a thousands deaths with her there at the Palmers' ball. Every girl has been a wall-flower at some time or other in her life and how, oh how dreadfully, we undersiand Alice's humiliation when no one asks her to dance. Praise must go immediately to George Stevens, the director, for the magnificent way in which he directed the entire picture, but especially the party sequence, which had the men in the theatre simply roaring with laughter, but the women sort of chok "Steamboat Round the Bend" brings a cargo of humor and Will Rogers as a steamboat captain.