Hide Article Text (OCR)
THE CRITIC ON THE HEARTH.I.»■ i» i—t*rMk* i~nil*(Continued from Face 1SD.Ibespectacled student. Carl Laemmle be praised!Everyone has the school spirit and we hear many such Rover Boy sentiments as The time to celebrate theLeonard belongs In It. He is a relic of the past. To expect him to make an entertaining film against present day competition is unfair and pitiful. With the eagerness of producers to seize big theatrical names It seems the public is in for a long hard winter of varicose vein exhibitions and a big parade of has-beens. It isi11«w* humorous to see the pomp and cere-lt. . said with grea^ meanign ,^^ , mony these poor soulsiUfYhirt Jm » hcrrplt mndMtv i Seek t0 panSc the studios* the manu-B':d‘VheColford spirits bigser thui factUred blg °Penin»s their Pictures ? * ?? » »? 8pt on Broadway and the immediatelion However the-e is otfe accurate i flop they experience as 500n as th« element Halt the' picture Is filled j £,C5“Ct‘0M are shm'n on thelr ora with such a bedlam of jazs musicand such wiggling* and smirkings as to be a positive reproduction ot any college campus..Midland—Speedway.*«Bill Whipple ...........William K»intt••••«*•••#•#••*• • AJim MacDonald........Ernest TorrenceDucan •*«Karl Jaii^ Lff B^nn? John tan Mr? MacDonald ..... .EuKenie Beaaerer The Waitress .............Polly McranThe big plantation house set buill for Uncle Tom's Cabin'’ is used again In a Universal picture. There won’t be much left of it by the time it is turned over to the woodpeckers.It will be forever a fascinating mystery to try to guess where Universal gets its child actcrs. There are two in this picture and it would be difficult to find two little darlings with more phoney looking yellowPHOTO PLAYS,mm stows.\Jle£tLOindfiIT is too bad we didn’t, file thefirst William Haines review we j ever wrote. Then, instead of toiling * at the typewriter as we are now, wesimply could get the o!d type ^MwqRID in MOTION dust it and send it to the composing! , ,^ . 7^ ‘V; walnut. CrtftWA** \ A N w P.eta.® Dailr 10 Acttnsf Pfopi? onroom. Sooner or later tne movie f staee. Biggest ioc show in Town,criticizing industry will do this. We will have an A1 Jolson review, a William Haines review, a William Boyd review, a Greta Garbo review and so on. These will be filed and repeated exactly as those stars file and repeat their plots. A critic will write nothing original until something original appears on the screen to prompt it. Thus we will become known as the real leisure* class.All the news about ‘’Speedway” may be told in a very few lines. It is a typical Haines smart aleck picture, certainly not much better than its predecessors, probably not much worse. It is gagged heavily, as even Mr. Haines must force his humor mnd build up laborious wisecracks when he Is doing the same thing for the eighth or tenth time.The picture is a silent one. After the talkies the broad farce of the! gags seems still more broad and obvious. However, there is a surprising number of laughs when one considers everyone in the audience knows a William Haines picture by heart. In this, the hero big heartedlypermits the kind old racing driver to pilot tne car to victory after he (the hero) has distanced all rivals. It’s a film for the family trade rather than for the avid movie fan.*Robert Sherwood writes of a great movie master-mind who is cleaning up in Hollywood. This great man will read any and all scenarios for the trifling fee of $1,000. As soon as his palm has been crossed with the “one grand’’ he steps behind the velvet curtain and goes into his trance. This genius has prepared a series of charts on which all the detail of the great hits and the great flops is recorded. He simply compares the scenario he Is diagnosing with the fever graphs on the wall.Should the picture deal with the winning of the West it will be noted the hero wears overalls, ‘whereas in The Covered Wagon” the hero wore leather trousers. This will be noted.Also if your story deals with a vaudeville song plugger it will be noted you have him loving his mother.This is entirely WTong. In The Singing Fool’’ the hero loved a little boy.The genius will set this right for you.If the plot is too original, the great man will frown and tell you your money will be refunded and that the house does not cater to this kind ofbusiness.That explains a lot we see In the movies.\ !*■***•Hcst, ' _ /?-. ,' y.GMSSl* * *v. ^ '■ +**• if?-- -•' K -at*■ *4* -40?-» -tftPantages—“Melody Lane.Des Dupree .............Eddie LeonardDolores Dupree ........Josephine DunnDannv Kay ........... Oenrcte StoneJuan Rinaldi .........Huntlev GordonConstance Dupree—Jane LaVerne, Rose Coe.win.....................=• ;-7-l % V ■ !j; ^WHATEVER possibilities may have been opened up to the screen by the addition of sound are more than discounted by the fact it now is possible to make pictures as bad as Melody Lane.” Such a flop as this could not just casually happen. It would have to be achieved by dint of mechanical research and a wide search for the world's slowest actor and the world’s slowest story. So in its way, Melody Lane is something of achievement.It is the custom of Louis Charnin-sky, the affable manager of Pantages, to dress himself and his ushers in costumes appropriate to the week s picture. Both appropriateness and preparedness would advise their appearing in strait-jackets this week, as it is difficult to imagine a group of persons locked up with “Melody Lane” a week and not suffering some wear and tear of the nervous system.Long ago the talkies dragged every singer who could sing out to Hollywood. It remained for Universal to do the original and daring th making a picture with one who couldn’t. If there is a theatrical mu-m*iim gnvwhflr* in the country Eddiev.hellt;iir%*-X **!dayCotn'^S fove1tie***Hep* * ‘/lerrt ,*ei modern'V. %.•St :!i: 'J!i;wStorUV. At*•.V*
Newspaper Details
Kansas City Star
Kansas City, Missouri, US
Sun, Sep 15, 1929
Page 59
Full Page
Clipped by
Rotten T.
USA 22 Jun 2020
Other Publications Near Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City Daily Journal of Commerce
Kansas City Journal
Kansas City Evening Star
Kansas City Times
Kansas City Weekly Kansas City Star
