World Film and Television Progress (1937-1938)

Gangway {Continued) Gangway presents Miss Jessie Matthews as a girl reporter — to be exact, an "Asst. Film Critic" — who tracks down an international jewel thief by singing and dancing. Miss Matthews dances her way to America and catches the criminal, in the sort of refined romp that England obviously supposes that America thinks that English films should be. Oh, by the way, there's a joke in the title, if you look at it attentively. You can read it Gangway — like that, one word — or Gang Way — like that, two words. It's only a small point — not serious, really. But one might as well give credit where credit is due. — C. A. Lejeune, The Sunday Observer Non-Stop New York (Robert Stevenson — Gaumont-British). John Loder, Anna Lee, Francis Sullivan, Frank Cellier, Desmond Tester. Robert Stevenson will mean much to the reputation of British films if he goes on like this. Non-Stop New York proves him to be a cunning assimilator of the best Hollywood traditions in direction. It is a film as admirably compounded of comedy and thrills, as confidently and expertly directed and as slickly produced as you could wish. We have the stars, we have the stories, and clearly it is the swift touch of a right-minded director that is needed to put British thrillers in a modern setting on a level with the first-quality American products in this genre. The film takes wings, literally and figuratively, yet the twists of plot are never obscure, nor too involved. Airway dramas we have seen in plenty, but this shows better grasp than most of just what can be done with a well-assorted lot of characters sitting up aloft. There may be nothing very new at any point, but it is all so slickly treated as to seem new, which is all that matters. All the parts are very well played, and the whole of the thrills and the laughter are neatly dovetailed together with touches of finesse that leave no room for tedium. — The Birmingham Mail Knight Without Armour (Jacques Feyder — London Films). Marlene Dietrich, Robert Donat, John Clements. When the study of hokum has been a little further advanced it will be possible to say whether Mr. James Hilton's story or Mr. Korda's film of it is the most artistic. For the moment there must be some in favour of Mr. Korda's star crossing of lovers and revised ending, and others who prefer Mr. Hilton's own understatement and faux-relentlessness. Miss Dietrich "Just a Movie looks nice occasionally and, when bathing, positively alluring, but she never gets within miles of the character. Mr. Donat acts the Englishman as before, very decently but monotonously. The smaller parts are better conceived and better done too. A mad station-master signalling unseen trains is brilliant. The technical qualities are remarkable for an English film. The trains look like trains, snow like snow and a Russian country house is just what one expects it to be. The director is M. Jacques Feyder who made Kermesse Heroique. Although this is not by any means a first-rate film, the direction, the technique and the story make it well worth seeing. — The New Statesman and Nation British agent caught in the Russian revolution saves countess. Donat and Dietrich. Some exciting action, some snotty attitudes. Preserves "impartiality" on the revolution by caricaturing the whites as ice-blooded aristos, by caricaturing the reds as swinish palace-looters. Rather offensive at times, but manages to remain just a movie. — Meyer Levin, Esquire Critical Summary. Everyone agreed that this picture was well made and good entertainment. Similarly nearly everyone agreed that it was a disappointment. So much had been expected of it, with two famous stars directed by one whose previous work had been acclaimed as being of quite exceptional merit. Miss Dietrich, exquisitely photographed, was found by one critic to be guilty at times of "unpardonable complacence,'1'' and another regretted that Robert Donates talent for comedy had unfortunately to be ignored. Indeed the picture came perilously near to being stolen by John Clements, who received the warmest praise from all sides for his portrait of the tragic young commissar. But altogether a great deal of trouble seems to have been taken over something really not quite worth it. Or as Miss Lejeune remarked "it seems to me a pity to have taken a whale of a story and turned it, at such expense, too, into a sole bonne femme." The Prisoner of Zenda (John Cromwell — Selznick International). Ronald Colman, Madeleine Carroll, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Mary Astor. Certainly this is one of the best things in its class. They throw in everything but the War of the Roses and elephants, and if you were to question the producers on the probability of any one scene they would take you for someone from the Department of International Revenue; yet once the story is accepted, you can see how they have worked at it with sincerity and scrupulous care, treating its hokum almost with dignity. Ronald Colman in the main double role is one reason why the scenes are built into credibility ; and Madeleine Carroll as Flavia is another reason, though it is unfortunate that anyone so lovely should occasionally suggest Ann Harding ; Douglas Fairbanks Jr. makes a good ornamental rogue; and C. Aubrey Smith is there for background. (Raymond Massey, if I were running the show, would speak all his lines with his back to the camera, through an interpreter). So the young king is saved from himself and his brother, love is renounced and the national welfare invoked, and Zenda lives again, if any. — Otis Ferguson, The New Republic "A good ornamental rogue ..." With all the Graustarkian punctilio this corner can muster up, we rise, click our heels, toast the Selznick International production of The Prisoner of Zenda and smash the glass. Here is proper, swashbuckling adventure, set in that vast mythical land (of which Zenda is a province) where honour is brighter, villainy unregenerate and beauty incomparable. Here is pomp and circumstance so intricately woven into the story that every measured pace of it simply bristles with excitement. Here is grand characterization, tastefully expensive production and direction that seeks out dramatic values in everything. Here is the most pleasing film that has come along in ages. The trick photography wherewith the two Rudolfs are shown together is so convincing that this reviewer believed, until he was corrected by someone in the know, that one or the other of the Rudolfs was a double. —J. T. M., The New York Times Le Roman d'un Tricheur (Sacha Guitry — French). Sacha Guitry, Jacqueline Delubac. M. Sacha Guitry was delighting French audiences in the theatre some years before the film, as we know it, was born, and it is therefore all the more surprising to find him taking this new medium in his stride, and indeed giving the cinema a notable lesson in originality. Even the tedious details of cast, technicians and the rest, which the filmgoer accepts as a necessary prelude to a film, take on a new interest in his hands as he allows his camera to wander casually round the studio and introduces us with engaging intimacy to his staff as they are discovered at their work. M. Guitry himself, as the cheat who gives to the film its title, is discovered in reminiscent mood seated at a table outside a cafe, and armed with pen and ink preparatory to writing his adventurous biography, and he it is who provides the film with its illuminating, philosophical and almost racy commentary, while the characters themselves remain silent. The history of the cheat is traced from earliest youth through various stages of uncertain integrity as page-boy, soldier, Casino croupier, gambler and man of the world until, with the final triumphant writing of "Fin" to the last page of his memoirs with the cafe's rather scratchy pen, he brings the film to a close. Regretfully we leave him to gossip with the waiter over his wine, having spent a most enjoyable hour in his company. We have chuckled delightedly throughout, as much intrigued by his experiences as by his refusal to accept the unimaginative formalities of the cinema. — The Times 25