Judge — March 26, 1932 — page 19: what you’re looking at

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

JUDGE Home WW irex advertised as a travelogue of a “delightfully different” sort, Around the World in 65 Minutes” began its run at the residence of Mr. ind) Mrs. Edward S. Merrill st evening. A large group of friends ind neighbors, who had been determin- edly herded in by their host and host- ess. filled the living-room where the picture was shown, and they rewarded the efforts of the producers with rounds of applause and words of praise. “Around the World in 65 Minutes” represents the pictorial memories of the Merrills’ world-cruise last win- ter. Mr. Merrill makes quite a point of that “65 Minutes,” reminding the uudience that a professional producer recently was unable to do it in better than 80 minutes. The consensus of the audience, after it had said its good- nights, was that Mr, Merrill might just wh, I can hardly wait to cat one of your home-cooked meals.” as well have beat the professional pro- ducer still more and cut his picture to five minutes or nothing, without losing anything worth mentioning. The picture opens with the Merrills on shipboard in San Francisco, and such was the photographie fervor of Mr. Merrill, the head cameraman, that it required two recls—no less—to get them out the Golden Gate. Some of the prize shots in this sequence are Mrs. Merrill standing at the rail, Mrs. Mer- rill waving to people on the pier, Mrs. rill reading a book in her deck- r, and Mrs. Merrill just sitting. he subsequent “delightfully differ- ent” scenes show Mrs. Merrill looking at Yokohama, Mrs. Merrill inspecting the Taj Mahal—which is just the other side of her right shoulder—and Mrs. Merrill brooding over the rail at Singa- pore. Due to a shortage of film, there 17 Movie Reviews are mercifully few shots depicting Mrs. Merrill in the Red Sea and Mrs. Mer- rill admiring the Mediterranean, but Mr. Merrill laid in a new supply in Italy d thereafter the audience gets no breaks. “Coxrvy relief,” if you take Mr. Merrill’s word for it, is supplied throughout the picture by good old Joe Riggs of Des Moines, Towa, a ship- board acquaintance of the Merrills. Mr. Riggs has no future in pictures. Although nominally a silent picture —if you overlook the squeak in the Merrill projection machine, which needs a few drops of oil—there are incessant vocal interruptions by the two Merrills. Mr. Merrill explains what the different scenes represent, and Mrs. Merrill cor- rects him, —Joun C. Esery ay ee eee comicbooks.com