World Film and Television Progress (1937-1938)

REVIEW OF REVIEWS Edited by h. e. Biyth Review of the Month ^JLr Under the Red Robe (Victor Seastrom — 20th Century-Fox.) Conrad Veidt, Annabella, Raymond Massey, Romney Brent, Sophie Stewart. The period film, we are continually being told (by people in the industry, not the public), is dead. And the period film, hardier than the prophets, continues for the delight of the romanticallyinclined in an unromantic age. The coming of colour may be expected to give it a new vogue, perhaps the greatest vogue it has ever enjoyed. Heaven send us producers endowed with discerning colour sense, or we shall lose the art of the screen in a riot of gaudy hues. Handled with such discernment, Under the Red Robe would have made a good colour film. But for amends there were Georges Perinal and James Wong Howe at the cameras. This is a film to enjoy if you have a heart for swashbuckling. Personally, I think the infallibility of the storybook hero is just plain, darned silly, but the romantic historical novel never made the ghost "Under the Red Robe" 24 of a concession to small-minded realists. D'Artagnan, Gil de Berault, the Scarlet Pimpernel and the rest of that heartening company of yore still occupy, I suppose, a place in the dim recesses of memory's gallery, whence they are wont to emerge, rebuking our latter-day cynicism and sophistry, at the bidding of a film such as this. And if it accomplishes an hour's return to the zest with which we once discovered Stanley Weyman and the rest, why, then, it must seem very well worth while. Under the Red Robe has an imposing cast. Nobody better than Conrad Veidt could have been found for Gil de Berault. If he wears the slouch hat with the long feathers in it, he is as far as a granite statue from ever becoming pixilated. His feet seem born to bear the jackboot and the spur, and it is Conrad of the gleaming eye all the time. Perhaps it is a shame to put Veidt up as a swashbuckler, but restraint gives credibility to every inch of his performance. It certainly was a pity to give Raymond Massey the upturned moustache of Cardinal Richelieu. Doubtless it was not to be helped, but I can assign to no other reason a loss of dramatic stature. He hasn't quite the presence, and walks too quickly, and leaves his admirers to fall back upon the recollection of that brief but marvellously sinister achievement of his as the King of Spain in Fire Over England. Annabella is the Lady Marguerite, and here again is the quality of restraint in perfection. A very calm and lovely actress is Annabella. The rather dimpled charm of Sophie Stewart as Elise goes well beside her. Under the Red Robe was produced by the American Robert T. Kane, and directed by Victor Seastrom, who is Swedish. James Wong Howe is Japanese, Veidt was born in Berlin, Annabella in Paris, and Massey in Toronto. But it was made at Denham Studios and Sophie Stewart was born in Perthshire, which entitles it to be regarded as one of the British-cosmopolitan films. — The Birmingham Mail The picture pursues its narrative rather more solemnly than we should have preferred, blunting its melodramatic edges against dull stretches of action and dialogue and sacrificing much of its romantic vigour to the inescapable maturity of its hero. For all that, it has its moments. You will find them predominantly in the scenes involving Raymond Massey's Cardinal Richelieu and Romney Brent's roguish manservant, Marius. Mr. Massey rescues the Cardinal from the elfin grasp of Mr. Arliss, presenting him in full panoply of ruthlessness and implacability. Mr. Brent's Marius, an amusing little scamp, serves to relieve the dour monotony of Mr. Veidt's performance and gives the film its much-needed comic relief. With more of Mr. Massey and Mr. Brent, with a bit more lightness in the script and with a younger man than Mr. Veidt to carry the central role, Under the Red Robe might have been a grand romance. As it is, it's just a bit to the credit side of average. — Frank S. Nugent, The New York Times ^mr Make Way for To-morrow (Leo McCarey — Paramount.) Beulah Bondi, Victor Moore, Fay Bainter, Thomas Mitchell, Barbara Read. There are no stars. The two principal characters are in their seventies, married fifty years. The ending is logical, leaving you with a fervent wish that things should magically change — the same wish we so often have in life. These facts make it at once an unorthodox film. It is also an uncommonly good one. It is the story of three months in the lives of this simple old couple. They call their married children together, and tell them quite frankly that they have no money, that their small-town home is to be taken from them. Don't imagine this is a tear-brimming "Over the Hill." With Victor Moore as the father there is a wealth of humour. The right kind of humour that has pathos in it. Beulah Bondi, as the old lady, gives the character balance and thus points the family's problems with desperate clarity. There is fine acting, too, from Thomas Mitchell and Fay Bainter, and an attractive sketch of cheeky adolescence by Barbara Read. There have been few films with so many chances of being insufferable, but this one edges round them all and turns out movingly bittersweet. — Stephen Watts, The Sunday Express This is a maundering, melancholy story, humped flabbily together after the manner of a mud-pie, slapped on the silver trowel of sentimentality, and extended for your kind inspection with the label: "Drama as big as life itself, brought to the screen by Paramount in the most appealing story of the age. It's the story for everyone, because it's everyone's own story." Please, is it? How many of my elder married readers (if I have any) with oodles of children (if they have any) remember suffering the brazen insult, the blackguard injury experienced byVictor Moore and Beulah Bondi in Make Way for To-morrow? At most, I hear one whispered "Yes," one furtive "What about King Lear?" But everybody — for this is everybody's "own story"? No, no, a thousand times no! And, even if it does happen, we don't want to see it happen on the pictures, unless the tale is told with a Shakespearean strength, a decent restraint and no hint of the morbidity that moans: "Melancholy for melancholy's sake!" Even a happy ending is denied us. For we leave Miss Bondi turning tearfully to her Home for the Aged, and Mr. Moore turning just as tearfully towards distant California in the knowledge that they will never see one another again — and in the pious hope that this picture will make way for to-morrow. It certainly deserves to run no longer. — Paul Dehn, The Sunday Referee Critical Summary. Opinions were sharply divided over this picture. The sentiment was generally considered to be excessive, but nevertheless many critics shared Stephen Watts' view that a difficult subject had been handled with real poignancy. The "New York Times" considered it likely to be one of the ten best pictures of 1937. (See also appraisal of Direction on page 1 0.)