Judge — June 14, 1930 — page 25: what you’re looking at

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

JUDGE UVGWG TEMOVIES By PARE LORENTZ + uas long been accepted parlor- in the piece from beginning to end. ertainment. The plot counter room entertainment. to blame Here is your Macfadden school of points a robbery with a society clop: everything from corn-borer cpi- art, a patent medicine with an artistic ment; it has one very demics to unemployment on Holly- label, a thing as incongruous as a — good character actor and a happy end- wood, and the old school intellect hairy-chested floor-walker. You are ing. It has, which is enough for me, cannot get through a speech without a asked to believe that a man of means — Miss Astor, and while I deprecate the curling of the lip in the general direc- and intelligence is giving a house- lack of influence this stern guide tion of the Pacific Coast. party in a hunting lodge, while the ms to have with the impresarios, I Asa rule this condescension annoys characters accost one another like de- cannot but again ask why this lady is me, but, brothers, tod I admit all, partment-store clerks on their annual not given at least one opportunity to No tabloid, no water-front, no hip- picnic. This bovine aphrodisiac fur- try her hand at some real work, exhibit ever struck me with such a nishes a heroine who is supposed to sickening impact as a movie called — represent the modern woman with her M* ‘The Divorcee.” I did not read “Ex- bundle of neurotic problems, while as 4 from which this movie took its a matter of fact she giggles and sighs story, but I cannot believe that the with the mechanical effort of a chorine am anonymous author who so trying to pay next month's rent. ssfully leaped from boudoir to There is nothing novel or daring typewriter ever put together a string about the situation in this great pro- of words as shocking, coarse, and nau- duction, but never have I seen a more seating as the shadowy interpretation brazen appeal to the constant confes- of the screen. Before this mawkish sion readers; if this is the tempo of outburst you can only blush, stammer future movie productions, I shall have Stage unit, as it is called, is the in and whisper that the movies are just to turn in my uniform, join the Lost- creasing number of movie shorts. in their infancy, and it’s getting to be Cause League and call it a day, There seems no end to the resurrec an unhealthy childhood. tion of dead vaudeville acts, and the If Miss Norma Shearer had elected “T te Ruxaway Brive” makes no Amos-'n'-Andy offspring already are to stalk flat-footed across the set with effort to prove anything, but it as thick as the sons of Abraham. The few or no raiments and enact simply has Mary Astor, and while she has Walt Disney animated cartoons, the a few fundamental and once religious never been called upon to demonstrate jyewsless newsreels, and Laurel and rites, one could call on the Greeks, any fiery genius, she is so genuine and ffardy the only routine talking Havelock Ellis and the biologists for lovely she manages to grace the sim- shorts with any measure of entertain- support. If the director had chosen ple plot of the movie with enough ment in them. The rest are as un- to put this heroine through one series charm to give you an hour's pleasant jmaginative and humorless as the of indiscretions after another with no memoirs of an undertaker. If they apology but with a logical moti ever put meat in these short sub- employed by Tolstoy, Ibsen, O'N Recommended jects, in time they should more ind every ‘probing dramatist, “AM Quit on the Westen Front” than surpass the silly stage shows had led his heroine into Mrs. W arren’s sive panorama of w now necessary to bring in the nick- profession with the cold precision of alles rather than dramatize els. The Germans have sent over Shaw, then you would have had som p A tal ate some exce y good nature studies. thing of drama. You cannot drama and a a The G nd Rice sport shorts are tize the involved conduct of men and - gale : ; . f ia, Kilbw Wesselt-A- Gent conned the only things we done in thi women any deeper in the mire than it stage with very little direction; and some really is, but the manner of the de- h ued lent. The customers always give the ent, not the depth, is a manifesta- in this’ countryc whee g animated cartoons a hand, even though tion of the dramatist’s character. superb by Colin’ Clive they do slumber profoundly through a Writer, director, and actress m million-dollar feature production. Di- aged to make “The Divorcee” a shock- rector Parrott has worked out a new ing piece of work because of its pre- r , ie and effective routine for his comics, tensions. This movie purports to be Laurel and Hardy, and if the boys smart, it pretends to the high places, oung Man of Manhattan”—A pro- would only spend some time and put fessional, alert. and entertaining "job A and there iy not one sincere piece of from start to. fini some good men on the job the short come to be a jor product. funny scene, a orp New England conscience and the editor lately have prompted me to sit through enti movie programs at the local cathe drals, and I can only marvel once nat the unlimited endurance of the movie customer. The ballets, the swan dance, the adagio dancers are still there; a bit feeble and gray, but just as insisting. Worse than the acting, there is not one genuine word comicbooks.com