World Film and Television Progress (1938)

on the whole, a very funny combination of the thriller and the gangster-play, and Edward G. Robinson as a beer baron, doing his best to be "legitimate" after the repeal of Prohibition laws, dominates the complicated and hectic action with a grand study of a rogue trying to be respectable. This murderthriller-gangster farce contains a great deal of ingenuity, of entertaining characterisation, and hilarious situations. — Michael Orme, The Sketch Three Comrades (Frank Borzage — Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) Robert Taylor, Franchot Tone, Robert Young, Margaret Sullavan Remarque's story of the three German war veterans who sought to find again the way to peace, and of the tubercular girl who loved one of them and died gallantly as their love was cresting, had, of course, the stuff of a gossamer tragedy. Its literary translation to the screen preserved the novel's spirit admirably. The players, beginning with Margaret Sullavan as the frail but dauntless Pat, through Franchot Tone's sincere and strong portrait of Otto and Robert Young's facile playing of the idealistic Gottfried, to Robert Taylor's actually quite acceptable Erich (either Mr. Taylor is improving or we are losing our grip) — the players, again, are remarkably right. But still it must be counted Mr. Borzage's picture. For he has interwoven its materials so deftly, has marshalled his players so capably, has used his cameras, lights and sets so persuasively that the film is all unity — a poetic, poignant, heart-breaking whole. — Frank S. Nugent, The New York Times Three Comrades is a version of Remarque's study of post-war Germany. Three war-time pals stick together in the peace, run a garage, and make friends with a gay but very frail girl, who marries one of them and shortly afterwards dies in a sanatorium. Frank Borzage would, I believe, have made a fine thing out of this study of social unrest had he not been defeated by the uncompromising Americanism of his cast. Not for a moment, in spite of tinkling folk-songs and a cafeproprietor stuffed with Stimmung, do they contrive to suggest Germany; but Margaret Sullavan and Franchot Tone play with such quiet sincerity that while they are on the screen the film comes to life. With the appearance of Robert Taylor it quickly dies again ; he seems, at any rate in this film, to have no conception of character at all; it is just Lee Sheridan all over again. When he was engaged to play in it, the film should have been renamed A Yank at the Tanks telle. — Peter Galway, The New Statesman and Nation Critical Summary This is just the kind of film that splits critical opinion. The sentimentalist weeps, the cynic sneers, while the green intellectual discovers in a few inches of the film the point of a lifetime. But whoever is justified in his attitude, all will combine in their attack upon the director; the sentimentalist because of the unhappy ending which puts an end to the osculatory display between Mr. Robert Taylor and Miss Margaret Sullavan; the cynic because the man of the world (Mr. Franchot Tone) is allowed to become a man of another and a more romantic one; and the green intellectual because the few inches of ill-digested thought have not been turned into the standard length by which he can judge all successors. The man in a howler hat, with pince-nez and umbrella, will pay his halfcrown, weep, sneer, and talk philosophy when he gets home. W.F.N. Selection North Sea * * * The River * * * A Slight Case of Murder * * * Design for Living * Yellow Jack * A Farewell to Arms Other Films covered in this issue: The Adventures of Robin Hood(stars reserved) The Private Life of henry VII 1 Professor Beware Thank Evans Swiss Miss Three Comrades Port of Seven Seas Joy of Living You and Me Women are Like That The Thirteen Orage L'liomme du Jour Port of Serea Seas (James Whale — Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) Wallace Beery, Frank Morgan, Maureen O'Sullivan, John Beal. A fine play frequently becomes an unworthy film. A sad example of this occasional corruption of excellent dramatic matter may be seen in Port of Seven Seas. Some few years ago a distinguished French playwright, Marcel Pagnol, wrote a series of plays around the Port of Marseilles. They were notable for the fidelity of atmosphere they achieved and for the creation of certain character types only to be found in that particular place, in that especial country and at that precisemoment."Marius," "Fanny" and "Cesar" achieved, between them, something beyond the wit of Hollywood to provide, that lovely gift bestowed so generously upon the French film industry viz., Truth. Port of Seven Seas is the saddening failure of falsity. This simple and heartbreaking story, in itself quite credible and touching, becomes a jumble of transatlantic sentiment and of crude playing on the heartstrings. Wallace Beery and Frank Morgan are both fiercely determined to earn their salaries; only the actor who plays Marius, Mr. John Beal, touches anything like the root of the matter. — Sydney W. Carroll, The Sunday Times It may be suspected that in the play by M. Marcel Pagnol, from which the film is derived, the plot was merely the pretext for some typical sketches of French family life. Such sketches might readily have lent themselves to French acting, but, as with so many American films based on French plays, the acting proves to be unsuited to the material. The plot is of the simplest — it tells of a young man's passion for the sea and the misfortune which befell the girl to whom he was betrothed. With American treatment, however, there appears to be insufficient light and shade, and the outlines take on an unnatural hardness. The scenes in the Marseilles cafe between the father of the young man and the old chandler, who lends the respectability of his name to the girl's illegitimate child, miss the light vivacity which is one of the secrets of French acting. Mr. Wallace Beery, without the adroit gestures and expressive silences which the part of the young man's father seems to require, falls into sentimentality, while Mr. Frank Morgan also allows falsity to creep into the eloquence of the friendly chandler. The scenes on the waterfront are well organised and photographed. — The Times •too of Li via a (Tay Garnett— R.K.O. Radio) Irene Dunne, Douglas Fairbanks, Jnr. Another of those loony shows, with Irene Dunne playing a hard-working, family ridden prima donna of the stage, and Douglas Fairbanks, Jnr., playing a philosophical gay blade who tries to save her from herself. Like most of the current comedies, it has scenes that are funny and good. Also like most of them, it lacks punch as comic entity. Miss Dunne, as in The Awful Truth, is delightfully giddy as the heroine. Fairbanks is arrogant when he should be sympathetic, ill-at-ease when he should be clownish. He sounds and acts a great deal like Ronald Colman fiveeighths of the time, which may account for this. The beer-garden and roller-skating sequences are best for all-round laughs. Good fun. — Stage "Screenplay by Gene Towne, Graham Baker, and Allan Scott based on an original story by Dorothy and Herbert Fields." Frankly, between the five of them, we feel that somebody might have produced an idea. 173