Hollywood on parade

HELEN BROWN NORDEN

■ AN ENGLISH TRIUMPH.-The British lion has roared a rousing challenge to Hollywood in the latest Gaumont British production, The Man Who Knew Too Much. No longer can we afford to sniff at cinema imports from London. For with this picture they prove indisputably that if they really want to, and put their minds to it, they can make films so brilliantly superior to ours that it behooves us speedily to look to our laurels or we will be apt to find ourselves with a definite crimp in our style.

The Man Who Knew Too Much was written by Charles Bennett and D. B. Wyndam Lewis. In brief, it tells the story of an anarchist group who plot the assassination of a European statesman—with a resultant war. A Secret Service man who knows of the plot is shot to death in a hotel dining-room at St. Moritz. Before he dies, he manages to whisper to his English friends the place where he has hidden a paper bearing information about the intended assassination. In order to keep their mouths sealed, the anarchists kidnap the young daughter of the English couple. The rest of the film deals with their attempt to rescue her.

But this synopsis can give you no idea of the terrific pace and tension of the picture. There is about it something of the swift and ominous quality of a Dashiell Hammett book. I can think of few moments on the screen more chilling to the blood than the first scenes in the office of the dentist at Wapping, more desperately nervous with suspense than the concert in Albert Hall, more dramatic than the minute when Edna Best aims a rifle at the man who is about to kill her child, and thereby closes the sharpshooting contest which began at St. Moritz, in the first of the film.

The film was directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and his work is little short of magnificent. For touches like the click of the first bullet on the hotel window-pane and that stunned instant of hesitation before Louis realizes that he has been fatally shot; for someone's cough, clearing the throat just before the choral sequence at the concert; for the opening of the scene in the hotel dining-room, with that stupendous view of the mountains, fading in, through the window panes, to the dance floor; for the moment when the rescued child, hysterical with fear, instinctively shrinks back from her mother, instead of leaping into her arms—as she would have done in any other movie in cinema history—for these touches alone, I say, Mr. Hitchcock should be awarded all the directorial palms of the year. But it is hard to pick and choose such passages from a film in which every moment is a perfect one, from the point of view of tempo, emotion and effect.

However, inspired as is the direction, it must be said that Mr. Hitchcock had an ideal cast to work with. Seldom have I seen such consistently superb acting, not only on the part of the principals, but also in every "bit" role in the entire film. Chief honors go, I suppose, to Peter Lorre, star of that great German film, M. As the master mind of the anarchists, Mr. Lorre creates another unforgettable screen character and proves himself perhaps the greatest of today's film actors—at the least, certainly a genius at diabolical suggestion. He is now in Hollywood, making Crime and Punishment for Columbia, after which it may be that he will do a picture with Charles Chaplin as his director. It should prove an interesting experiment and one which ought considerably to enhance the Hollywood output for the year.

In addition to Mr. Lorre, The Man Who Knew Too Much can boast of Nova Pilbeam, that most intelligent of all child actresses; of Leslie Banks, whose restrained acting makes doubly dramatic his role of the child's father; and of Edna Best, whose playing of the mother is a small masterpiece. The cast also includes excellent characterizations by Pierre Fresnay and Frank Vospar.

In short, on the counts of direction, acting and photography, the film is the best of its kind I have ever seen. It is not only exciting melodrama; it is, in its way, a work of art. Hollywood can learn many a lesson from it, not the least of which is the way light banter really can be done in a smart and natural way, as shown in the early scenes between Miss Best, Banks and Fresnay.

■ MR. WHITE AND FOX.-To turn back to the realm of ordinary hit-and-miss movies is not much fun, but then, life is no bed of roses, even for such a dyed-in-thewool fan as I am. Fox has turned out a production called George White's 1935 Scandals—written, produced, directed, and acted in by none other than Mr. White. The result is pretty much a routine affair, with the customary dance numbers which obviously could never be produced on any known stage, and a number of tunes which I can't for the life of me remember even the names of—much less go around whistling (provided I could whistle)—but which will doubtless turn out to be the hit songs of the year, just to prove me tonedeaf as well as sour of heart.

The cast, in addition to Mr. White—who, to me, looks like a cross between George Jessel and Buddy Rogers—includes Lyda Roberti, Cliff Edwards, James Dunn and Alice Faye. The biggest laugh, as far as I was concerned, was when Mr. White picks up the last two at a tank-town amateur night, transports them to Broadway and immediately stars them in his new revue, on the opening night of which they proceed to become the hit of the town with a number they couldn't even get away with in Schenectady.

The best thing about the whole film is the cinema debut of Eleanor Powell, announced—and I believe rightly—as "the world's greatest female tap dancer". But they spoil even that by constantly shifting the camera to Miss Faye, and what I want to know is, who wants to look at her when the great Powell is dancing?

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BRITISH PROPAGANDA?—Beneath the seemingly innocuous guise of an historical costume film, I think I detect a note of Fascist propaganda rearing its ugly head in the Gaumont British picture, Farewell to Love. However, I may be wrong. But what would you think of a picture in which the king is shown up as a spoiled imbecile, and the court and royal counsellors as vicious aristocrats, whose only aim is to bleed the peasants through taxation; a picture in which, from the rank and file of the people, arises a leader to dominate the king and the court, to abolish taxes for the poor and create them for the rich, to transform castles into free hospitals, to free the serfs; a picture the former title of which was The Dictator? As depicted herein, the deeds accomplished are just and good, the moral a worthy one. Unfortunately, in real life, it doesn't always work out that way, and not all dictators are liberators of the common people.

The scene is laid in Eighteenth Century Denmark. Clive Brook plays the dictator, a little too archly to jibe with his noble motives; Madeleine Carroll lends her chill English beauty to the role of the queen; while Ernlyn Williams steals what honors there are, in the part of the king. The picture was written by Benn W. Levy, whom I never before suspected of being in cahoots with the Black Shirts.

■OTHER RECENT FILMS.-Although The Wedding Night was released a couple of months ago, it deserves mention, not only because it is the best of Anna Sten's three American films, but also because, on its own merits, it is good, sound entertainment, intelligently directed, capably acted, and containing some of the best dialogue of any of this year's Hollywood pictures. Gary Cooper continues to flabbergast us all by acting with insight and humor, while Miss Sten, as the Polish farm girl, at last has a role which is admirably suited to her. Also, she has never looked lovelier. King Vidor, the director, reverts to his old style and brilliance—remember Hallelujah?— with the result that the entire film has a definite flavor and naturalness. Scenes such as the Polish family supper, the wedding, and the talk between the wife and the Polish girl stand out as a tribute to Mr. Vidor's skill and his feeling for essential rightness.

The Victor Herbert operetta, Naughty Marietta, is another of those handsome musical pictures which are terrific successes, set everyone in the theatre to humming and tapping their feet, and usually leave me lulled into an amiable stupor. W. S. Van Dyke did an excellent job on the direction; Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy sing away for dear life and manage to look presentable at the same time—a feat which always enthralls me; and there are two good comedy performances by Elsa Lanchester and Frank Morgan. The latter continues to play the befuddled and wistfully lecherous elderly character which he did so superbly in The Affairs of Cellini, but it is still funny. And if you like Victor Herbert's music, you will certainly get your fill of it.

Walter Wanger's production, Private Worlds, from the novel by Phyllis Bottome, shows us life in an insane asylum, and very pleasant it looks, too, what with handsome, collegiate-looking male doctors like Joel McCrea sitting around in elegant quarters, drinking Scotch and soda with pretty female doctors like Claudette Colbert. The thought of Miss Colbert as the efficient head of the men's ward in an asylum is slightly upsetting, but she manages to peer into microscopes and toss off technical psychiatric references with her customary charm and nonchalance. You don't for a moment believe in her, but it is not worth getting upset about. The one really intelligent performance is that of Charles Boyer, as the asylum superintendent. He not only acts well, but he is the sort of a gent who has the girls—me first!—fainting in the aisles. In Caravan, they mussed up his hair and dressed him in gypsy tatters; in that tremendously dramatic and beautifully done picture, The Battle, they pasted up the corners of his eyes and made him a Jap; but here, in Private Worlds, they let him be himself, and I am here to rise and state that that is something!

DAT OLE SOUTHLAND.&emdash;Bing Crosby's latest is Mississippi, a preposterous story of Dixie in the old days, originally written by Booth Tarkington. There is a great deal of singing of Swanee River on Mr. Crosby's part, and Joan Bennett and Gail Patrick lapse into Southern dialect whenever they can remember it. W. C. Fields is cast as a bibulous showboat captain, and I guess he is pretty funny. At least, everyone else in the audience seemed to be in stitches, but I got a little weary and consequently managed to restrain myself from any wild burst of guffaws. The music is all by Rodgers and Hart, except, of course, Swanee River; and there are five terrible-looking and self-conscious little pickaninnies, billed as the Five Cabin Kids.