Judge — November 1, 1930 — page 22: what you’re looking at

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

JUVGIWG TEMOVIES ie movies produced during the sistently lower in every possible y than any similar cycle of movies I have ever seen. The forecast for the winter leaves me about as optimis- tie as a Kentucky farmer who he nothing but short loan notes to feed his hogs for the forthcoming winter. That movies are of less value, th: they are not much good compared with the productions of three years ago is no diabetic Jament of a constant movie-goer. Anybody who has seen dozen movies a year for the past dec- ade could hardly argue the point. Of course the gold kings are not in any danger of losing their yachts at the moment. There some fi bling going on in the high pl the utilities obviously have _ polite blac! s, in the form of future pat- ents and present’ financial surplus, with which to hijack their way to absolute stock control. However, the ordinary customer is not interested in the faney gambling that goes on with- in the industry. He wants to be amused, and the movies are not amus- ing for specific reasons. iene were three movies this week which purported to be comedies. “Heads Up” is a musical comedy boiled over from last Charles “Buddy” Rogers is not ing to me or anybody else except hapless salesgirls or club-footed © miners who can discover in his girlish enthusiasm some gr: jacking in their home life. Musical comedi ways included sweet young men li Mr. Rogers who sing opposite young ladies and bore a large majority of the audience between the times the comics knock each other around, but never have I known any stage show to depend upon its sweet young man for its success. “Heads Up” is a dull movie, whereas the stage show was amusing simply because Messrs. Zukor, Lasky, tz, Schulburg, et al., for some reason or other think he is more important than a good comedian. season, JUDGE By PARE LORENTZ Mr. Rogers is just one of the reasons why “Heads Up" is not a good movie, but there is no point in giving you an additional one. “H Suor at rise” is also supposed to be amusing. As a matter of fact this thing in now resembles a movie. It is a colle of old gays swept out of the aisles of vaudeville these by what iy jocularly referred to as a comedy team, One of the comedi is told that he is inspiring—he Ic at his armpits and remarks, “Just a This general Jevel of wit is this little. main| super ined throughout Radio Pictures S action, or what there is of p Mr. Keaton recently appeared in a war-farce. There ar these differences between his produe- tion and “Half Shot at Sunrise’: Mr. Keaton is ian; his movie moved; the d well written. super- » The it, takes ce in France. THE farce. River” is an attempt at It doesn’t stay farcical long enough to produce one amusing moment. ‘The concluding episode re- sembles a short piece printed in this magazine some months ago in which Recommended war burlesque with moments great! aided by 3 ibid Angels” —Long and dull in the b ells ‘ photography of the “Lincoin”—Stephen Benét wrote this hut “he won't keep you on the edge of seat. id Enxlish*—A mild but pleasant evening with George Arliss “One Embarrassing Night"—A very pleasant English comedy. “Storm Over Asia”—A silent Russian production with a great actor and the usual directorial skill 20 ¢ y two convicts want to return to prison in order to play on the baseball team (And, now that we're on the subjec one of the situations in “Follow Thru duplicated a drawing we used months ago, and it wasn’t a very good draw- ing, either.) “Up the River” has to have its little moral, so a crook and a girl go through the usual palpitations and difficulties before the thing closes up. The thing isn’t funny and it wasn’t intended to be melodrama, so 1 can't see what you could get from it. T ere also was Madam Satan,” by Cecil De Mille, but any time at the end of a hard week I go to see a movie with a title like that turned out by old Moses De Mille it will be only at the point of a sharp note from the editor and i To return to the lecture, s movies I saw this week and movie called the many preceding ones were so much dead matter because of the inerti thick wit of the producers who hi from fear allowed nobody to throw y the faney electrical apy deposited at their doorsteps t and produce movies that first son for movie sterility of the stage. Nine of movies now pl the ing in local first-run houses were originally written for the fifteen theatre. Yet, despite the fact that these rehashed stage shows not only not suited to the sereen but tha even myopic fans are bored and tendance is dropping off, the produe- ers refuse to look away from Broad- way and turn their wage slaves to producing real movies. Westerns have recently become popular and_ solely because there is less talk and more action in them than the usual program movie. If the utilities get a lock on Hollywood, they will undoubtedly con- tinue to use their pretty sound equip- ment. But unless the sound does something else but talk the kind of stuff we're getting these ys, they might as well turn their cathedrals into golf courses, comicbooks.com