Judge — March 19, 1932 — page 24: what you’re looking at

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

tere ee Cast aL view of the most popu- lar entertainments in this great country in the year of our Lord 1932 certainly scems to prove that the butcher, the plumber, and the undertaker are in charge of the popu- lar arts. Without attempting to em- ploy exact statistics, the movies, the radio, and the popular magazines rep- resent mass expression. What are they offering? Right now au ish romance called “Emma,” written by a Hollywood hack and pls amiable old lady, shares— torian thriller, namely, stein,” played by English parlor act- ors, directed by a capable but limited novice—the country’s attention. I do not listen to the radio except under I am told, however, that a named Wons (who, unfortunate- ly, I have heard) shares—with some- thing called Sisters of the Skillet, a former employee of Mr. Whiteman called Bing Crosby and several jazz bands—the devotion of a radio put As I write this the six best-selling novels are “Loads of Lov “Silver Bride,” “Mary's Neck,” “Mr. and Mrs. Pennington,” ‘“Harbourmaster,” “Summer's Night,” all of which are written by ladies and gentlemen who long since told their stories and, with the exception of Mr. Tarkington and Mr. McFce, who are pleasing story- tellers, never told one of any conse- quence, I is my theory that the public has not flocked to Frankenstein” because it is a convincing melodrama, It would be in keeping with critical lamentations to believe that the nation had sunk into stupidity so deep it swallows whole a thriller which was fairly ulous to its first public, to a public which was certainly as aware of Shelley as it was of ‘anken- stein’s monster, but such contemptu- ous groanings are too easy. I think people, bereft of religion, the youthful hope of a glorious, free nation, the bumptious optimism of ex- plorers and frontiersmen, seize upon JUDGE JUDGING THE By PARE LORENTZ whatever they can find in movie th tres, in books, in their lives, to find glamour. All of us know, of course, there is no Santa Claus, that love is a lot of hooey, that all emotion is a mat- ter of bio-chemistry and early feeding habits. We know, too, that no more dreadful culture exists in the world than that deposited by New England- ers in the Mississippi Valley, thence to the Pacific Coast. And nothing could be more ridiculous than the ma- terial jazz-singing of Aimee McPher- son, V £ can take a melancholy pleasure in viewing the bilious entrails of American civilization through the sharp lenses of our young writers. But where can the farmer, the butcher, the baker and the undertaker, whose property has been sold for taxes, whose minister belongs to the Rotary Club, whose liquor must be drunk by hind darkened windows or in the hay loft, whose government sends him cheery jargon over the air, intermin- gled with crooning tenors, where can he find anything related to beauty, grace or religion? It is, of course, his own fault. It also will be his own fault if he sup- ports an adventuring Oklahoma farm- er for the Presidency, if he starts a tax rebellion, and if he whoops up a war with Japan in order to escape stifling boredom. He goes to “Frank- because he knows no better. Recommended “Arrowsmith"—Solemn but dull at- tempt at the Lewis novel, important because of Miss Hayes, Mr. Anson and Mr. Bennett "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde"—Amusing. trinket for the children, well-paced and written. “Hell Divers” have to protect Shanghai Some idea of what we our filling stations in “Monkey Business" 1 just. menti this for the people who have heen hi and haven't heard about it. “Taxi” — : ‘Another tough Cagney com- p to the standard. Maybe. But I can’t help but feel that the gentlemen who do know better fail to see beyond a horizon bounded by speakeasics to the East and studios to the West. T is amusing that a quack doctor most was clected go sas because he preached a goat- cure over the radio. It is amusing that a former governor of Oklahoma almost impeached because of al- ed mystic, black-mass ceremonies which took place in the state house. But if I lived in Kansas such things would interest me more than the latest Tarkington novel, the newest eco- nomic aphrodisiac from the Whi House, or the latest Gershwin melod After all, given the choice of listenin to Senator Watson speak on the tariff, or the local minister speak about Sen- ator Wagner, or listening to Bing Crosby, or reading the latest Herges- heimer Saturday Evening Post serial, I would much prefer to put in a few hours listening to a gentleman talk about restoring the powers of love. (That's one of the few things that the Republican party hasn't laid to the world crisis.) Arteta decade of laboratory fiction and drama, I think even the bright boys are tired of the facts of life. Primitive as it is, ‘Franken- stein” deals with the fanciful, the other world. And I think the produc- ers mistake the reason for its success I doubt that “Freaks,” “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” (which inciden- tally has been changed into a farei- cal sex melodrama) or any of the other patent thrillers recently rushed through the mills will equal the success of Mrs. Percy B. Shelley's space to review it this tin but I recommend “High Pressur as a farce, well done in every depart- ment including, believe it or not, Mr Powell, the leading man. It’s very good fun. comicbooks.com