World Film and Television Progress (1937-1938)

Reviewed by Basil Wright Woman Chases Man A United Artists film, directed by John Blystone, with Miriam Hopkins, Joel McCrea, Charles Winninger, and Erik Rhodes. Wild Money A Paramount picture, with Edward Everett Horton, Lynne Overman, and Louise Campbell. John Grierson — continued habit of music-hall emphasis and become a good film actor. In one episode, in particular, where, as the cautious Scot, he becomes gradually and by nuance entangled in a confidence trick, he puts in some quiet and distinguished acting, and shows he has the right idea. But quiet acting is not the sort of thing we are encouraging these days. In our desperate search for narrative speed, and a very proper search too, quietness is giving every director the jitters. The elements of punctuation will come later, and better so. We have been trying to make films with nothing but, for the past ten years. The emphasis to take on this O'Reilly picture is that, like several recent British comedies, it has an improved sense of speed and dialogue, and Gainsborough may compliment themselves on a picture which is bound to be a great success. Consider it as taking a further step in the humble development of real British cinema, and it becomes even an important picture. One pity — and I hope there is nothing psychological about it — is that it makes the same disastrous mistake as the recent British comedy Storm in a Teacup. It does not know how to finish. There is a damaging longueur in which Mahoney dances to the point of boredom and an idiotic and extraneous Spanish dance is added to that. The effect is to break down the atmosphere of speed and expectancy which has been skilfully built up over the length of the picture. Gainsborough might also look into their choice of supporting characters. There are one or two duffers who stick out like sore thumbs. But, all in all, it is good to see this sort of thing coming along and so regularly — in spite of the British film depression. I confess I expected to see the sun rise from another quarter than Islington, but Islington is a real part of London, and I am glad to be wrong. If rollicking and robustious comedy is the best thing to do — and there seems no question — we had better lower our noses and give it every help we can. Salute to Miriam Hopkins, who could act every female off our Shaftesbury Avenue stages, and makes the screen too narrow for several Hollywood big shots we could mention. She is with us again in a film which means just nothing at all — except perhaps that there is more and more wood-alcohol getting into the Clicquot so carefully imported by Lubitsch and other pre-Hitler emigres. Just a farce; location, one mansion and a convenient tree; cast, four good players and the beautiful Hopkins; story, not worth a synopsis. Sam Goldwyn, who produced, has always been good at starring-vehicles, and there is no other reason for this film, which presents unsullied by technical tricks, "a lady richly clad as she, beautiful exceedingly." These sort of films are really very interesting, because the production values tend to be lower than usual. In a way this is no exception. Its directorial sense and its timing are far below Easy Money or Love is News. The scenario is no more than a clothes peg for farcical situations. The sets are ordinary — though very competently photographed. Stock characters repeat lines which weren't terribly funny way back when Schnozzle Durante was at high school. There remains Miriam Hopkins. And why not, just for once, sit back and enjoy talent and personality? The camera faithfully records the least quiver of a come-hitherish eyelash; the microphone lovingly presents each nuance of a voice which has been really trained to do its job. Technique? Yes, acting technique. Timing? Yes, in terms of muscular control. She is always a dangerous woman ; watch her, in Woman Chases Man, chase without mercy, conquer without mercy, and capitulate without mercy. Watch her take charge of a thoroughly uninspired bit of shooting, smash it to bits, and build it up again for her own fantastic ends. Watch her invest some of the surrounding characters with her own peculiar glory. And remember Defoe's preface to Roxana — "The story of this beautiful lady is to speak for itself." Perhaps it is time to remind you not to go and see Woman Chases Man unless you are a Hopkins fan, or a Joel McCrea fan for that matter; he has his points, but this time just misses the Gary Cooper possibilities in his socalled part. Wild Money [saw unpretentious littlesecond feature — so unpretentious in fact that it uses the same cafeteria set as Easy Living, with which it was double-billed at the Plaza. One seldom notices these share-and-share-alike sets; although they are a good idea and highly economic, one hesitates (from previous experiences) to recommend them to our Home Studios (there's enough hire-purchase atmos phere already). But revenons a nos Hortons, for the fun of this film is that whereas we always expect the unexpected to happen to Edward Everett Horton, on this occasion the unexpected happens to us. This mild, exasperated, and slightly suspicious darling we all know so well, suddenly blossoms out as a tough guy, getting all he wants regardless of anything except the strict moral sense without which he would be as naught. He appears, in fact, as an accountant on a newspaper, interested only in petty-cash economics, and regrettably in love with a good-looking but poisonous little female reporter. The perfect sucker, as usual ; until, on a backwoods holiday vacation, he finds himself scooping a terrific kidnapping story for his paper. The other reporters arrive, but Horton, solemnly in charge, does the he-man act, foresees nearly everything (including the fact that he will need a large tractor in Reel 6), and generally makes good. It is here necessary to mention that the reporters are portrayed as such reptilian abominations that one feels that the director has some special grudge against the press. It may just be possible that Horton exploits the same dramatic ability as Zasu Pitts — and for the same ends. Just as she wrings her hands in slapstick with the same tragic fervour as in Greed, but with an added fantasy of exaggeration, so maybe Horton's sudden nervous gestures — the innocent but fearful glance, the smile awry with prescience of a kick in the pants, the attempts, predoomed to frustration, to stand up nobly in a disastrous world — these too may be the fundamentals of more serious possibilities. Certainly, in this film, when he shoulders his responsibilities, the old gestures remain, but take on a more serious meaning. One, might almost, if it were not bad manners to philosophise about trifles, detect in this performance a faint suspicion of the grand tradition. But this is probably silly season stuff. All in all, the film has that nice open air quality common to many inexpensive Hollywood productions; there is that faint whiff of woodsmoke and open-air cooking which endears us to the Western ; and Horton is lovable and slightly stern for a change and brings it off. Let us leave it at that. 25