Monday, Jan. 30, 1933
The New Pictures
The Big Drive (A. L. Rule) shows the cinema as an instrument for recording history. It is a war picture compiled from newsreels and from films which the producer secured from the files of the U. S., British, French, Italian, German and Austrian Governments. Some of these are routine shots of German troops marching through Belgian villages, of ten-inch guns firing through underbrush, of U. S. troopships leaving their docks, of George V reviewing his soldiers.
If The Big Drive offered nothing more sensational it would remain an interesting cinema document, but it contains also a number of sequences which are less reminiscent of propaganda newsreels released during the War: a mangled soldier being carried into a front line dressing station and coming out with both legs gone; an old Belgian woman sitting in a shell-hole beside the corpse of a soldier and snivelling into his hat; hand-to-hand trench fighting in which, although the photography is somewhat blurred, it is possible to see a real bayonet go through a real soldier; a squad of U. S. infantry going over the top into machine gun fire; a zeppelin picked out by searchlights over England; a chaplain walking through an evacuated battleground, making rapid gestures over minced bodies. There are good sequences of Italian soldiers scampering wildly in retreat across a bridge under shell fire; prisoners lolling about and scratching themselves in a barbed wire paddock; the bombardment of Ypres; a German officer burning his tongue on a spoonful of soup in Brussels in the summer of 1914. Some of the performers in The Big Drive are Lord Kitchener. Elsie Janis. Baron Manfred von Richthofen. Clemenceau. the Crown Prince, Tsar Nicholas of Russia. Producer Albert L. Rule, who was a private in the American Expeditionary Forces, accompanies his picture with a lecture which should have been composed by someone else.
When The Big Drive was given a test run in Chicago last month it surprised cinema tradesmen by filling the McVicker's theatre for over two weeks. Hollywood producers, unable to comprehend that the cinema can be a medium for anything except drama, will be startled if. as is likely, The Big Drive repeats its success elsewhere. Producer Rule claims to have compiled his picture as peace propaganda of much the same brand as George Palmer Putnam's grisly collection of war photographs entitled The Horror of It (TIME, March 21).
One of the tricks which First Division Exchanges, Inc., distributors, advises exhibitors to use for publicizing The Big Drive: "On opening night, have supposedly shell-shocked veteran simulate a seizure. Use this as a basis of letters to editors of all newspapers, arraigning the idea of bringing back the horrors of war. Follow up with a dozen letters from legionnaires, etc. defending the picture as an argument for peace. . . ."
Der Hauptmann von Kopenick
(American-Rumanian Film Corp.) takes the stock comedy situation of an incompetent impostor and makes it amusing by treating it in a new way. Wilhelm Voigt, a washed-out little man with a wispy mustache, sets out to find a job after 27 years in jail. He discovers that he cannot get a job without a passport and cannot get a passport without a job. He notices, in an abashed way, that army officers seem to have an easy time getting anything they want. It is this observation which prompts him finally to a desperate and daring escapade. Wilhelm Voigt rents a captain's uniform in a pawnshop. He commandeers a troop of soldiers and marches them to the town of Kopenick. He has the mayor arrested and takes over the government of the town. When he learns that Kopenick is too small to have a passport bureau, Voigt takes off his uniform and surrenders to the police but by this time his exploit has been so thoroughly publicized that even the Kaiser has chuckled at it. The impostor is a celebrity and he gets not only a passport but a pardon for his misdemeanors.
Adapted from a play by Carl Zuckmayer based on an incident which occurred near Berlin in 1906, Der Hauptmann von Kopenick is a satire on military bureaucracy as well as a comic character study. The story moves slowly, as is generally the case in German cinema, but Max Adalbert acts it cleverly. English titles for German dialog are too carelessly done to help much.
The King's Vacation (Warner). It may be that there is a trace of snobbery in George Arliss's choice of roles, for he seldom impersonates anyone below a prime minister. This time he is a sort of sublimated Alfonso of Spain, the victim of a bloodless revolution who is delighted at losing his throne because it gives him a chance to go back to the woman he loved before he became a king. After all being a king had bored him to tears.
Just when it should have been most amusing, with the deposed monarch's discovery that his onetime inamorata is living in a palace and his queen is really a homebody, like himself, The King's Vacation loses most of its verve, works itself bluntly to a trite conclusion. Dignified, stylish and frail, like its principal actor, it is a picture which deserves notice mainly for the moments in which Arliss manages to extract the last drop of comedy from obvious situations. One such: King Philip rewarding the parents of the largest family in his domain by shaking hands with all their children.
Tonight is Ours (Paramount). When a potential assassin shoots at George Arliss in The King's Vacation (see above), Arliss orders the band to play. In Tonight is Ours, Claudette Colbert does much the same thing under the same circumstances. She is a young queen who loves a commoner (Fredric March) but who, for reasons of state, is about to marry a Prince (Paul Cavanaugh). It is hardly necessary to add that a revolt almost as opportune as the one in The King's Vacation enables the Princess Nadya to enjoy what she describes as "her true heart's desire." Tonight is Ours, adapted from a play by Noel Coward which contains few traces of its author's customarily bright dialog, has the advantage of not taking itself too seriously. It is also one of those productions, a Paramount specialty, in which onyx tables, glass doors and chromium telephones provide a glitter which its situations often lack. Good shot: Alison Skipworth, as a Grand Duchess, telling the Princess what she liked best about the U. S.--iced tea and Coney Island.
Air Hostess (Columbia) deals sketchily with the duties of the personable young ladies in uniform who flutter over bored or nervous passengers, ply them with bouillon, magazines, small talk. It generally advertises Transcontinental & Western Air--which does not employ hostesses. Mostly the picture is nickelodeon melodrama, including a race between plane & disaster-bound train. Silliest shot: Hostess Kitty King (Evalyn Knapp) in a studio-built plane-pantry big enough to be the kitchenet of a dwelling.
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