1933-08-01 — Page 17

PERFECT SOUND and COMFORT.

QUEEN'S

AIR CONDITIONED THEATRE

QUALITY IN PICTURES.

We are not withholding pictures

during the summer!

Gems for AUGUST.

"WOMAN ACCUSED"

with

NANCY CARROLL-CARY GRANT

JOHNBARRYMORE

Reunion

Vienna

WITH DIANA WYNYARDA

"DEVIL IS DRIVING"

with

EDMUND LOWE—WYNNE, GIBSON “

norma

eare

Shea

Мож

MGTUKA

Wilin

in a romance

"that stirs moon- light memories

Through

FALDRIC

LISTIC

MARCH HOWARD

JOAN CRAWFORD MARY COOPER

TODAY WE LIVE

CHARMING MUSICAL ROMANCE

"TO-NIGHT IS OURS"

with

CLAUDETTE COLBERT

FREDERIC MARCH-ALISON SKIPWORTH

HELEN HAYES CLARK GABLE

THE

To Chill Your Vory Blood! "TERROR ABROAD"

with

CHARLIE RUGGLES

NEIL HAMILTON-VERREE - TEÁSDALE

THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH. TUESDAY, AUGUST 1, 1933.

CINEMA "SHOTS" AND "SEQUENCES"

SUPREMACY

OF BRITISH ̈ ̈ COMEDIES.

LOVE ON WHEELS A MASTERPIECE

THE VALUE OF COOPERATION

WHEN DRAMA IS REAL

(BY

"CELLULOID")

FOR the past two or three

years British film.compan- les have been building up a re- putation for dispensing comedy of a quality second to none. The. reputation has been acquired through the medium of pictures of the type of Sunshine Susic, The Love Race, the Aldwych farcics and comedies, Canaries Sometimes Sing, Thark Just My Lack, etc., etc., Up for 't Coop, Splinters In The Navy, and a host of others. Each has bor-

Elissa Landi, Ernest Truer and Marjorie Rambeau as they appear together in "The Warrior's Husband" coming attraction at the King's Theatre,

YOU CAN SEE THESE TO-DAY.

King:"Love on Wheels" Queen's: Song of the Eagle" Central:--"The Unknown Singer" Majestic-70,000 WitnerHes" Oriental:"A Devil with Woman" Star:"Man About Town" World: Reaching for the Moon"

WEDNESDAY.

Queen's;~~"The Woman Accused“ Central:"Goodnight Vienns"

rowed something from the other in cinematic technique, endowing mere stage plays with the pecu- liar qualities of the camera, the expression of sound music and the art of the scissors. The final result is to be seen at the King's Theatre to-day, where Love On Wheels, featuring Jack Hulbert and Gordon Hark- er, is enjoying a highly success-tanama ful run.

the

THIS picture is undeniably

acme of good cinema blended with pantomime. And indeed the mixing of these two elementa is no easy ait-back-in-your-armchair job, Pantomime and tomfoolery does not lend itself to the finer points of cinema as does drama, autire

THURSDAY:

King's: "Wild Girl" Majestle: "Secrets of the French

Police"

ON

THERE is nothing like extracts from real life for screen drama. Story-book drama hardly ever geta beyond melo-drama. The melo-drama which "Sanper** nently describes as being some- thing which you are pertectly prepared to believe could happen, but which never would. It is the reality of Song of the Eagle which makes the picture so powerful and Impressive. Just flashes of what hare now become historical in- cidents in the life of America, when handled efficiently by Hollywood, become infused with a drama which no newspaper description or orator could ever give them:

•

•

found Song of the Eagle more fascinating as a searching study of America in a political, economic, caught in all sorts of positions by industrial and social cataclysm, than its advertised appeal of being the focus of the camera, whilst the tender tale of two lovers the cutter adds beauty to the shots

work, groping for happiness." In its final analysis the picture attempte to with some smart scissor Possibly the best example of this offer suggestions for the wiping cohesive work between actors and out of the beer racketeer of 1933 technicians is to be seen in the by the law abiding brewers selling drunk scenes. The whole thing legalised 3.2. And the solution marvellously acted by Hulbert offered makes a most significant even melo-drama, Tho predomin- and Harker, and brilliantly treated gesture, equivalent to saying "well, ant problem before the director is and dressed up by the assistants. the Arm of the Law has failed; new let the public take a hand." So we the use of dialogue and action. The excessive use of one will pro- ROM the technical viewpoint and the police unofficially condoning F I felt there were only one or an attack on the racketeers by an bably ruin the other. The camera-

or

man has, to fasten on satirical two flaws and those confined army of hired unemployed, but symbols, the musical arranger to entirely to cutting. The sequence refusing to take part in the affair acore appropriately, and- the of the chase in the departmental themselves. 1 cutter to see that the sequences store could have been vastly re-

•

WELL, for the most part, Victor Saville and his colleagues have succeeded in accomplishing these necessities and have made Love-on Wheels a credit to themselves and to the English film industry. One of the most pleasing improvements

ed into

do not develop from the sublimely duced and would have lost not- BUT it is the earlier scenes ridiculous to the bless-my-soul-how-hing. I imagine Saville tried to which are the most impres interminable.

capture some of the art infussive. The panorama of big events similar. scene by which have filled the pages of Rene Clair, but the camera doa American history since 1916. The not assist his to the same extent, prohibition of beer, the war, the and there is too much repetition. return of the soldiers to find the

but I mublic houses Gordon Marker. is amusing.

closed and the tired of seeing Jack Hulbert, and Eighteenth Amendment in force. Leonora Corbett running in op The rise of the gangsters and posite directions, to find each racketeers, the election of Pre- in homeside productions is the eare other..

sident Roosevelt and the passing being shown in the titles. First

of the Beer Bill. These are plc- inipressions are reputed to be best, acting is splendid. Jacktorial expressions of facts. They and certainly it strikes trite when. Hulbert and Gordon Harker are vividy presented by means of associated with film. Ernst made an ideal combination. Har-highly advanced cinematic craft. fade into Lubitsch has made himself celebrat ker has proved himself indispen-The individual actors

ed on the strength of his masterly sible to the light comedy screen insignificance beside the drama of tilling and opening sequences". To throw the audience immediate and is without equal in his diver-the incidents. It is brilliantly ly into the atmosphere of the pic-sity of urotravals. Jack Hulbert's portrayed. ture" and its story is Lubitsch's dancing is always a sheer joy, and first thought. It is a pleasure to see that Victor Saville is not afraid to follow such a lead

Home

LOVE On Wheels boasts

opening scenes which compare favourably with anything seen on the modern screen.

Green-

baum, the photographer, has work-

•

though he may not appeal. to AFTER this we have to get down riotously to suppositions and fancies, one as being quite so funny as in Jack's The Boy, this and the purely personal element may largely be accounted for by enters the film. Where before the the presence of Gordon Harker, picture was national in character becomes individual. Tho who steals a lot of the laughs it

schemings of Charles Bickford na originally intended for Hulbert.

the gangster leader, the strugglo THE supporting cast maintains for honest existence by Jena the standard of the principals. Hersholt, Richard Arlen, Mary ed with consummate skill, obtaining Edmund Gwenn, now celebrated Brian and Louise Dresser, sharp angles clover lighting effects and real atmosphere. The theme in Hongkong for his delineation murder of Jean Hersholt and the is the awakening of a new day add to

of the Mayor in Tell Me To-Night, subsequent revenge obtained by his reputation and Louise Dresser. These become the Mamoulian treated it in his classic Love Me To-Night, when he de Leonora Corbett is perfectly essentials of the picture, and one picted the birth of a morn in Paris, charming, Love on Wheels is un- somehow feels that the dynamic Savillo doca not obtain the pulsating doubledly the aim of the week. rhythm of Mamoulian, though this

la due to the fact that he given the subject entirely different trents ment. Its effect, however,. Is equally as pleasing. There are quick cuts from object to object, cach

having

delightfully whimaleni relationship, such an the successive shots of the wife taking reducing treatment, the boy clean- ing his tooth, the air being pumped into the tyre of the motor bus, and the corpulent old gentleman per forming his breathing exercises. It is not a deep complicated study In expressionism, but it forms a perfect introduction to the central characters and to the story,

WITH the plot naturally an thin

as water, the appeat of tho film automatically depends on the ability-of-the-players-and-the dovolopment of details, by the technicians. Tho harmonious working of these two doctions 'plays' a' lending part in the -suc- cess of the picture, Hulbert. for instance smiles his broadoft smile and the photographer. Improves upon it with 'a clover close up. When Hulbert dancès bis"foot aro.

Glamoröds Joan Crawford as the appear In "Rain”,÷a: brilliani-ple turn" which }ub-faatures › Walter

the

appoal of the film has been lost. Nevertheless full marks must be Kiven to the players for their able work. There is not a single weak- ness in the cast, whilst the tech- nical side always keeps up its

officient amazingly

standard. Song of the Eagle is in many re- spects an extremely good picturs. Ita defects are alight and it is n splendid example of American polish.

*

HERBERT Wilcox has discovered

many other stara, but nono having a potential brighter future than Anna Nenglo, who is to bo seen at the Central Theatre to-mor row in The Little Damozel..

NNA Nengis played in the great- ly successful film, Good Night, Vienna, opposite Jack Buchanan. She then revealed a charming per sonality of exceptional beauty, with a lovely speaking voice, and, above all, with the true feminino graco which is the distinctivo characteristic of the leading women stars of Hollywood.: Aií · Anna Neagle hoeded to place her feet Arinly on the ladder that ends to. star, rank was intelligent direction (Continued on Page 0)

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