Silver Screen (Jun-Oct 1940)

Direct From Hollywood PRIDE AND PREJUDICE Costume Classic — M -G-M DON'T say that costume pictures can't be hits. Because this screen version of Jane Austen's classic of long ago, is a decided hit. The big excitement of this picture, however, is Greer Garson. Greer was so lovely as Mrs. Chips, and then her stock went into a definite decline, but as Elizabeth Bennett she gives a performance that will put her right up there on top again. Greer has that "womanly" quality that no other actress in Hollywood has. The story, as you know, is all about the middle class Bennett family in Nineteenth Century England, and how poor distracted Mrs. Bennett, with five unmarried daughters, manages to marry them all off. It's grand fun, and don't let the rustle of those voluminous Victorian skirts throw you off. The Bennett girls are Greer, Maureen O'Sullivan, Ann Rutherford, Marsha Hunt, and Heather Angel. The scheming Mrs. Bennett is played by Mary Boland, and Edmund Gwenn is Papa Bennett. Handsome Laurence Olivier has the leading male role of Mr. Darcy, and his romance with Elizabeth Bennett is something new in romances. Excellent in comedy parts are Edna May Oliver as the snobbish Lady Catherine, and Melville Cooper as Mr. Collins. Others in the perfect cast are Frieda Inescort, Bruce Lester, E. E. Clive, and Edward Ashley. THEY DRIVE BY NIGHT Doubly Swell — Warners GEORGE RAFT and Ann Sheridan are teamed romantically in this smash-hit melodrama, but it's Ida Lupino who wraps the picture up and takes it home with her. Ida plays a neurotic young woman who finally becomes insane, and plays it so effectively that just watching her makes goose pimples break out. Her final breakdown on the witness stand is a sensationally outstanding scene, and one that you will long remember. There is no doubt about it, Ida Lupino, after eight years in Hollywood, has come into her own at last. The story is all about truck drivers whose huge trucks ply the highways from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Attention is centered on Raft and Humphrey Bogart, the Fabrini Brothers, who after years of being just one step ahead of loan sharks, finally become heads of a big trucking company. The picture has an exciting climax wherein Raft is tried for the murder of his boss, Alan Hale, and is just about to get the chair when Ida goes nuts and confesses. Comely Miss Ann is excellent in several wisecracking scenes in the first of the picture, but gets completely over-shadowed by the volatile Miss Lupino in the last. A swell gutsy picture, this. GOLD RUSH MAISIE Grand Performing By Ann Sothern — M-G-M 71 NN SOTHERN again plays Maisie in *"* the third of the Maisie series, and Frances Farmer, in a scene of temptation in a tropical setting, attempts to learn whether or not Jon Hall is made of the sterner stuff. It's from "South of Pago-Pago." that alone makes it well worth your time. The story itself is not so hot, unfortunately, but Ann's performance is really something to rave about. This time common, good-hearted Maisie finds herself stranded in an Arizona town, no job, no car, no nothing. She meets up with a poor migratory family and travels with them in their broken-down car to a ghost town where gold has been discovered. The gold rush is a fluke, but Maisie stands by her little family until they have found a way of making a livelihood out of the soil. Lee Bowman plays a grouchy 66 Silver Screen