Judge — February 22, 1930 — page 23: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

| | JUDGE JIUDGWG Tt MOVIE? IS rspite the absurd announcements that are plastered D outside the theatre announcing that ‘ ret of Chance” is nothing less than a clear explanation of the Rothstein murder, the movie is a very convincing little job. There is nothing new about it except its atmosphere, but with the help of able William Powell and a few shots of Times Square the director has conceived a perfect impression of the mores of that peculiar group of snug- suited men who loiter with indolence in the lobby of the Palace and in front of the hotel stoops in the West Forties. The incidental plot concerns a professional gambler who has protected his kid brother from the wiles of the ci He has also promised his wife to leave it all. You imagine the big scene. Just as he is about to go straight the kid appears and he has to sit in a big game in order to save the boy from himself; meanwhile the disillusioned wife is sitting at home waiting for her erring husband to escort her to Grand Central and a little cottage some- where in the country. The big poker game comes under the head of entertainment, and as neither the director nor William Powell take the plot seriously, you can for- give the smug morality of the story and accept it as a neat dramatization of yesterday’s headlines, an atmospheric playlet of how one well-tailored gentleman was escorted to the morgue with a skin full of lead. “Qow or tie Gops” is a dramatization of a Rex Beach “novel. It is neither ambitious nor pleasant, although it tries almost everything before the evening is over. Richard Barthelmess again becomes a very earnest and searching young Oriental, but this time his destiny runs afoul the Will E and at the end he has to swap his mandarin co; college-cut sack. The son of the sods is a young Chinaman who finds that Western civili- zation is more interested in the color of a man's skin than the texture of his brain. He is given a good initiation by one of those mythical American ladies who would rather ride ina Rolls than sit and contemplate the wisdom of her ancestors and, although it dragged at spots, up to this point the story held some depth and promise. About this time the old Hays commandment, “Thou shalt not mis- cegenate,” was sent over to the studio, so they changed the story and had the young Chinaman in reality a direct descendant of John Adams and Mrs. Bingham. Accord- ingly he marries the pure but white gitl and sends for ten ays offic for “Applause” —Some of the best camera work of the year wasted on a penny plot ‘The Avister”—Edward FE a weak imitation of “The Hi “The Bishop Murder Case”—In this issue. “Condemned” —Ann Harding and Ronald farce. “Hallelujah” —You've beard of this one. wife. “Hot tor Paris”. tion of Paris. “Hall's Heroes"—Surprisingly good. “Hit the Deck”—Terrible. By je = § ; The Movie Guide A college boy's concep “Her Private Aftaie”—Ann Hanting in an ma about the compromisnd 6 casy saxophone lessons, and Elbert Hubbard's Sera I cannot understand this censorship on the part of Mr. Hays, unles> he is in the pay of Arthur Brisbane or the British colonial office. I can sce where he might hesitate before allowing “All God's Chillun Got Wings” or some other study of negro-white marriage to be filmed simply because so many of his constituents of cach race would protest. The Daughters of the Confeder: and the Association for the Advancement of Afro-Americans would set up a frightful din, and Mr. Hays’ clients would lose fourteen or fifteen million dollars (a trivial sum, vide Mr. Fox). However, the Chinese race 1 knowledge never organized a watch-and-ward society they long since should have destroyed most of Bret Harte and condemned every movie comedy including Chinese cooks and 1: Then, too, we acknowledge Chi- nese embas: nd even send our own Marines to China. So if it were not for the fact that most Chinese gentle- men are not in the least upset by the fact that our young women consider Oriental marriages disgraceful, we could expect the insulting and stupid conclusion to “Son of the Gods” to become a cue for international correspondence. As it is, Mr. Hays has made a fair movie ridiculous and Mr. Barthelmess has gone to a great deal of work for, in a manner of speaking, nothing. indrymen. is full of horses, songs about g the The horses were convincing and entertaining. “Emme Jouxnxy Jones” horses, songs about love, and people who songs. “Tue Bisnor Murver Case” falls below the Van Dine “The Greene Murder Casi so it has so much bloodshed it’s bound to get on your nerves sooncr or later, and were it not for the fact that Basil Rathbone, as the modern Sherlock Holmes, never once looks at any of the liberal number of corpses but insists on starting right in on long and dull lectures about some theory or other, it would have been a better movie. I read the book and knew who was guilty, so Rathbone didn’t impress me so much; besides, I am still old-fash- ioned enough to like my dead taken seriously and when, at the count of five, Rathbone still went on talking with- out even feeling sorry for his departed brothers, it got under my skin. My only criticism of “The (Continued on page 32) “The Mighty”—George Bancroft. in a familiar rile; still good. “Little Johnay Jones”—In this issue. “Show of Shows”— Aconizing. “Son of the Gods” —In this i Days’ Leave”—Beryl M: a. weeks. “Love Comes Along’—In this invue “Seven Keys to Baldpate”—Eotertaining. “Mavy Blues" —William Haines in another Sop. " “Street of Chance”—In this iasue. comicbooks.com