THE CINEMA
4. Love is News." At the Gaumont—" One in a Million." At the Regal—" The Frog." At the New Gallery
IN writing of films two standards of criticism are really necessary, and as no one has invented a separate vocabulary for either, it is usually the reader's part to make the dis- tinction, and to realise that a whole-hearted culogium of Love is News is written from a different standpoint than a similar eulogitun of, say, We of Kronstadt. The latter film, already reviewed in this paper by Mr. Graham Greene, may now, on its appearance at the Academy, be signalled once more as a fine movie drama of the first importance. With Love is News we must pass to a lower level, lest the earnest searcher for the good, the beautiful, the true, be impelled to turn up his nose at it. That would be a pity, for it is gay, witty, exciting, lunatic, refulgent with jewelled Americanisms, and produced with that startling polish which no one outside Hollywood can emulate. As its glittering nonsense flows past, one may suspect where Beaumarchais would have ended up had he lived today.
Tay Garnett, who directed, would appear to be one of that monstrously cold-blooded tribe of film-makers, bred only in America, who will turn out, to order and with precision, a drama, a sob-story, or a farce, with an efficiency which entirely conceals its own soulless mechanism. He is a portent of the age. In One Way Passage he brought us as near a genuine poignancy as a weak scenario would allow ; in Love is News he achieves spontaneous laughter from the most brittle of artificialities. What does it matter ? Speak well of his works, for he is plainly a man in love with his job.
The story tells of a wealthy young millionairess who, tired of being hounded by reporters and splashed coarsely across the front pages of the yellow Press, turns the tables on her chief tormentor by announcing her engagement to him. As she watches him struggle in a glare of publicity more enormous than she herself had ever achieved, she naturally falls in love with him. We may presume that united they will be able to bear what singly drove them to desperation. Each unexpected turn and twist of this fantasy is embroidered with well-timed "gags," the best American wise-cracking humour, and a few lines of genuine wit. Tyrone Power as the reporter and Don Ameche as his editor, carry the main honours, and knock each other down with punctilious and friendly regularity. Loretta Young, possibly miscast as the wealthy heiress, makes a brave effort and succeeds in ridding herself of the dignity her eyes and nose demand. Among the small part players Slim Summerville rejoices the heart with his study of a small town magistrate direct from the novels of Thorne Smith.
One in a Million stars for the first time Miss Sonja Henie; champion ice-skater of the world. Facially she is not an ideal screen-type, but she possesses a voice any actress might envy, and skims across the ice with the assurance and grace of a summer swallow. Skating must surely be the ideal subject for moving pictures. Indeed, there can be few camera angles from which it is ineffective ; those few, however, the producers have unerringly chosen, and repeated sequence by sequence with grim determination. Miss Henie's art was theirs for the asking, but there is no slow-motion, no attempt at an analysis (however superficial) of her technique, and no sense of exploiting the possibilities of the ice-ballet which fails to be the climax of the film. Instead, reel upon reel is devoted to the antics of players who deserved a happier fate. There is Jean Hersholt, sincerely attempting the pathetic in a part which makes him look a fool, while Adolphe Menjou, Arline Judge, the Ritz Brothers, and Borrah Niimievitch try to make bricks of humour out of the clay of a drab scenario. When Miss Henie puts on her skates the film flickers into life ; had direction and photography been more happily conceived, it might have flashed into an electric beauty. From any critical standpoint this must be listed as a disappointing and second-rate production. As for good skating—the newsreels film it superbly every winter, and film it inside out.
The Frog, adapted from one of Edgar Wallace's best novels, is a humdrum thriller, which establishes the drearier levels of competence only too typical of many British films. What life it possesses is due to the splendour of Gordon Harker, as Sergeant (later Inspector) Elk, of Scotland Yard. Armed with drab mackintosh, with bowler hat, with umbrella pregnant with malice, he stumps from reel to reel, turning all dross to gold. Mr. Harker is suigeneris; refuse all imitations. - BASIL WRIGHT.
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