Monday, Oct. 06, 1941
The New Pictures
Nothing But the Truth (Paramount) is an old turnip that was squeezed dry long ago. Darling of the little theaters and the high-school drama societies, the farce (written by James Montgomery from Frederic S. Isham's novel) moved in on Broadway in 1916 and stayed for 332 hilarious performances. Last of its many mutations (including two movies) was nine years ago as a feeble musical called Tell Her the Truth.
This time Bob Hope wrestles with the role of a young stockbroker who wagers $10,000 that he can tell the truth for 24 hours. He finds it tough going. Although Scripters Don Hartman and Ken Englund (and other nameless gagmen) have tried hard to refurbish the old farce by throwing out the 1916 gags and substituting their own, the change is scarcely noticeable.
Hope tries hard to pep things up by wearing a negligee, insulting old women, hiding in a bait box full of anchovies, etc., but it's no use: the hoary farcicle smothers his brand of fast, wisecracking humor. For his truth-telling pains, he wins the $10,000 and Paulette Goddard. Perhaps it's Hitler's fault, but telling the truth isn't very funny any more.
Ladies in Retirement (Columbia).
Louisa (Edith Barrett) likes to put frogs on the dining-room table and make them jump into the marmalade pot. Emily (Elsa Lanchester) collects dead birds and tidies up the river banks. Ellen (Ida Lupino) manages to keep her sanity, except for one regrettable lapse in which she garrotes her employer: pretty, bewigged, aging Miss Fiske (Isobel Elsom), a onetime actress whose onetime suitors have pensioned her off.
This first-degree murder (its motive is to provide a haven for Housekeeper Ellen's beloved though wacky sisters) might have gone unnoticed if Albert (Louis Hayward), a renegade nephew of the sisters, had not shown up at the old manor house. He guesses Auntie Ellen's guilty secret and attempts to blackmail her. Their clash of wits and wills finally ends disastrously for both.
Retirement is one more indication that Hollywood is having one of its best Broadway seasons in years. Like The Little Foxes (TIME, Sept. i), it is a good cinemadapta-tion of a recent Broadway success of the same name. Hard on its heels are some 20 more Manhattan dramas now being redramatized in Hollywood.
Like most of the cinema's attempts to remake successful plays, Retirement is long on dialogue and plot, short on action. Although Cameraman George Barnes does his cinematic best to focus the story through his lens, his range is restricted mostly to devising new angles and lighting for the same old people in the same old room. He makes a noble attempt. The atmosphere of Retirement is all melodrama and a moor wide.
What Retirement does best is five attractive characterizations by its principals, with an assist from housemaid Evelyn Keyes. A holdover from the Broadway cast, elegant Isobel Elsom is a handsome ornament to the grisly drama. The others are less handsome, but just as effective--especially taut, slight, eruptive Ida Lupino, who deftly manipulates her neurotic nuances as if her nephew (Mr. Hay ward) were not her real-life husband.
Spooky shot: inquisitive Albert, opening the immense Dutch oven which, the last time he looked, held Miss Fiske's valuables, finds it neatly bricked in, thus revealing to the audience the whereabouts of Miss Fiske's body.
Tanks a Million (Hal Roach; United Artists) puts a cheeky Quiz Kid (William Tracy) just where most cinemagoers would probably like to see him: in the U.S. Army. Unfortunately, the Army is in such shape that the Kid (named Dodo Doubleday) very nearly runs away with it.
Dodo was a railroad-station information clerk until the draft reaped him. His phenomenal memory makes Army Regulations nothing but a brief mnemonic exercise. An apparent intellect in the ranks so terrifies Dodo's superiors that they make him a sergeant in self-defense. From there on in, his way is paved with slapstick.
Cinemaddicts who want to see Tanks will have to see it on a double bill. About half as long (50 minutes) as a standard feature picture, it was thought up by Producer Hal Roach as the answer to the double-feature exhibitor's prayer: a short feature to combine with a standard-length picture so that cash customers will still think they are seeing two pictures for the price of one and the exhibitor will be able to squeeze in an extra show per day.
This ruse, if successful, may end the curseworthy and costly double feature. For if movie audiences take to featurettes like Tanks (which is merely a stretched-out episode), they may be weaned down to one standard-length feature and an extra-large helping of good, inexpensive shorts. Producer Roach is so hopeful about his new "streamlined features" that he has made five of them, has another block of five on the fire.
CURRENT & CHOICE
Unfinished Business (Irene Dunne, Robert Montgomery, Preston Foster, Eugene Pallette; TIME, Sept. 15).
The Little Foxes (Bette Davis, Patricia Collinge, Teresa Wright, Dan Duryea; TIME, Sept. 1).
Here Comes Mr. Jordan (Robert Montgomery, James Gleason, Claude Rains, Evelyn Keyes; TIME, Aug. 25).
Sergeant York (Gary Cooper, Joan Leslie, Margaret Wycherly, Walter Brennan; TIME, Aug. 4).
Major Barbara (Wendy Hiller, Rex Harrison, Robert Morley, Robert Newton; TIME, June 2).
Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, Dorothy Comingore, Joseph Gotten, Everett Sloane; TIME, March 17).
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