Hollywood: 1944 Style

...The choice of Eddie Bracken as s mild, much-buffeted, unhandsome hero was perceptive and perfect...

...Those who view the motion picture as a potentially powerful medium for making people more aware morally and esthetically, and those who simply like good things, will continue to watch for them...

...No one since L**iiu h*« shewn a comparable ability to climax Host brutal slapstick with scenes of almost bruPoignant -motion...

...Practically all the films shown here come from Hollywood, and the BBC relentlessly plugs the foulest jitterbug tunes from America...

...hers Is ons of the few mature performances of the year...

...Miniver...

...Betty Hutton's scting in "Miracle of Morgan'a Creek," aa well as in some lesser films, has initiated a new and welcome style: the naive, unspoiled small-town girl with a bouncing and uninhibited libido, whose conversation is at once slap-happy, spontaneous and sensible...

...Lifeboat" y * ^""iral tour de force...

...Louis," at any rate, she provided some of the most satisfactory magic of the year...

...The brief shot of the Big Three at Versailles was done with intelligence, apparent verisimilitude, snd dramatic effect...

...It allowed the West Indian man-servant to be intelligent, spontaneous, graceful, more convincing and winning than any other Negro I have ever seen in a Hollywood movie...

...Perhaps the moat deserving daks for distinction, however, comes from "Phantom lady," which was directed by Joan Harrison, formerly mrlstatit to Alfred Hitchcock...

...He is one of the very few fresh, flexible, and apparently human male actors on the screen...

...Still the portrait waa one of a cold, tight-lipped man of great dignity: a strange hero for Hollywood and only poesible todsy because the war has politicalized every element of the atmosphere...

...The male performance of 1944 that remains most vivid in my memory is Alexsnder Knox's "Wilson...

...She has been given fewer silly or slock lines to speak than any other actress I can think of...

...There were many ex•PJht things in it (the conversational exchanges in •¦¦fT and much of the acting), but its self-imposed ¦Wation '"reed it into cleverness instesd of real ¦•¦¦JlBient...

...Sturges has a talent for upsetting Hollywood's traditions in casting...

...The manners, the clothes, the furnishings, the central problems of the movies are alien to the normal life experiences of American women, but not— and this is the crucial fact—to their daydreams...

...We are yet to reap the fruits of s morale based on handouts of propaganda pap so distant from the human material they pretend to describe...

...And one scene in a Bowery flophouse brought to mind the stark naturalism of Stephen Crane's story "An Experiment in Misery...

...As a matter of fact, her directors have treated her quite royally...

...TSht Grade B pictures are done in very little time, Hsejl budgets, customarily without care, taste or actors of any ability...

...His strsight acting, however, has developed into something clesn, vigorous, and controlled...

...Moriss are a big business, and aw asonnous overhead makes it more profitable to tM the market with shoddy fare than to shut up shop...

...she seems never to be entirely convinced that her role is simply a role, rather than something quite as real as fairy tales can become for imaginative children...

...Bat at the end bo seems to he saying that ho is privileged to satirize such sentiment* because he also shares team, Ws are reminded of the attitude sf Sinclair Lewis toward hie Babbitt...

...Claudette Colbert, cast as a loyal wife and mother of two grown children, still hss her doting and handaome suitor...

...Indeed, some sf the scenes compare favorably with the master's Best: the jsm session of hopped-up musicians with its uaeiampM us* of camera, cutting and sound to schieve the symbolism of frenzied organism...

...But the performance of the child (Ann Carter) was restrained and honest, and the picture noM have been distinguished in any case for its ¦aiqoe violation of Hollywood's stereotype of the Negro...

...Among the fairly young male actors, Gene Kelly and William Kythe seem most promising...

...The members of the family are also above any average in genteel and unrelieved sweetness...

...Hia of Morgan's Creek" and "Hall the ConJ™» H,ro" had the frenzy, the sharp, unexpected fttL** •lUck sf genius gone amok...

...Journal, "constituting a blue book of America's heavy Industries...

...Only the dramatic night-street dance with his store window reflection in "Cover Girl" has given him sn opportunity to employ this style on the screen...

...It is fortunate that she cannot sing well or even hold a tune (as she demonstrated in "Meet Me in St...

...Hia speech of self-exposure at the end of "Hail the Conquering Hero" was a masterpiece of timing and gesture...

...Kelly has a vibrant stsccsto quality reminiscent of James Cagney, and the compact, controlled body of a dancer...

...Joseph Cotton's suave snd flawless charm as the platonically persistent rejected suitor Is almost frightening to watch...

...e hi Starg*.' week a kind of eheeeeive ¦*¦¦¦» which drive, him to violent sad ribald ua,r ef America's meet hallowed iasUtatieao, moth erased sad h«ro-worship...

...This can only mean that American readers are simply not interested in what the British people are .thinking about the war or planning for the peace...

...A picture of the same period done with sn eye for reslly rrucisl historical detail, rather than for derorativenesa and pomp, would have made powerful and evocative cinema...

...The catalog will ran to more than 1,100 Pages In two volume...

...The picture itself 'soon became oppressive in its adolescent and trivial view ef history as a succession of conventions, bsll games, and esr-blasting songs...

...His first American film, "Rebecca," was brilliantly dsns, but the canal commentary of camera movement eat detail that we had come to look forward to and HnVaheeek's very special ability to endow the commonjtee* with individuality and strangeness was smothered the elaborateness of the production...

...As James T. Parrell puts it, "One act of daring experiment and bold honesty may cost a million dollars...

...If any movie tried to show what army training really meant for American boys, what it did to their habits, their personalities, their thinking, I neither saw it nor hc.ud of it War action pictures invariably wound up with the standard deeds of heroism and sacrifice along with a sermon of patriotic bombast...

...lean quickly about the 'American way,' so the Soviet Union this year will be richer by a> cool quarter of n million dollars sf ad- vertlsing from some of the biggest of the big business corporations In America...

...There will be between 700 snd 800 Individual ad rertiters," reports the Wall 81...

...The small-town politician types are miraclea of unexpected and precise casting: one has only to recall the insne previous roles given to the very capable actors who played the parts of judge and reform party candidate for mayor in "Hail the Conquering Hero...

...The plot, no great matter in itself, had the quslity, rare for a Hollywood product, of proceeding without coercion...

...Pictures like this OHO are directly aimed at the adult American female...

...The technique *W tabby, the pace erratic and disturbing, there was •JMsence of the most elementary gestures of imagina((except i„ * nne pa8gage which introduces the 2J* »*<mt affectionately playing ball with his little {^•daughter while he simultaneously frames the "Shadow of a Doubt" showed Hitchcock back at jjndualized characterisation, suggestive camera work, *•.sustained, relentless plot movement...

...ANGLO-AMERICAN UNDERSTANDING AND BOOKS Douglas Gold ring, English writer, comments: "A factor which contributes to misunderstanding between Americans and Britons is the one-way traffic in...

...RhiiIon "Toko" RUSSIAN representative, her...

...The Hitchcok influence It strongly evident and all to the good...

...A good slice of them are proSlsj limply as fill-Ins, ineviUble under the present E|«f double-fosturs block booking which compels ^5 •wnara to taka films thay don't want in order STthcec they do...

...As the pacifist son of an army officer in "The Ox Bow Incident" and Bernadette's reserved suitor, William Eythe brought into Hollywo.nl the old but almost forgotten virtue of underplaying a part...

...The spacious private house with rooms for guest snd maid is not the Average Home as recorded In U.S...

...These movies, therefore, set out to satisfy the reverie needs of its major audience...

...he brings intensity snd conviction to his roles...

...While it would be sanguine to expect (except in rare cases) boldness or honesty of conception in movies of 1945, there will be, as there has always been,* such qualities scattered in small doses through the acting, the photography, the direction of many films...

...In "Since You Went Away," David Selsnik developed the Hollywood- Woman's Homo Companion conception of the typical American home in wartime with caressing photographic detail and occasional sophistication...

...Ih "Lost Angel," "The Canterville Ghost" end the fascinating Hallowe'en scene of "Meet Me in St...

...Val Lewton, who produced those two remarkable ftkk% has this year taken a different tack—in the Juifjnn of straight-forward educational movie-making...

...I can only attribute this to the patent force of her personality which probably canliot stomach inanity and shows it...

...the scene of an attempted murder en a desolate Third Avenue "El" station, and its ejawoament Bit there has appeared nothing to hold up against each earlier Hitchcock films as "The Secret Agent," The Girl Wss Young," in which a sensitive intelliwas transformed into competent and inventive rinematie instinct...

...According to the Lynd's "Middletown in Transition," women predominate heavily in the audiences of the better class houses and determine the type of picture thst will go...

...Hollywood: 1944 Style A Review of Last Year's Best Performances By Nat Glick MBfJIPT for the reviewers of ths daily press and LJESfcorad addict*, • survey of 1944's films ia & handicapped at the (tart by the physical im^Lajfjty of seeing rren a respecuble percentage of i, year's productions...

...and the similarities between the two ds net end hers: they have hi common the tendency to exaggeration and burlesque, the piling up ef common, homely details for the par* pose of ridicule and exposure...

...IPJHOUT doubt, the moot original director working •"•ilywood last year was Preeton Sturges...

...Of course, Hollywood and advertising in general have largely determined the forma which their daydreams take...

...27.5 percent of our publishers' scanty stocks of psper are devoted to books of American origin, but only 2.5 percent of American publications come from England...

...Claudette Colbert has authoritatively mastered all the nuances of an American Mrs...

...Such films are usually made in conjunction with the branch of military service they describe, and their guiding principle is not honesty or even artistry, but public "morale...

...Perhaps it is her very youth that makes her acting ao persuasive and delightful...

...But by now, what they want and what Hollywood wants them to want are so thoroughly mutual and entangled, that it would seem hopeless to try to put them asunder...

...In 1944 there were no low-budget films (or, for that matter, (rpsnsive ones) to equal the exciting cinematic lsnpage of "The Seventh Victim" or "The Cat People" of IMf...

...In Hollywood, Hitchcock has not smtained anything like the quality of his British work...

...With "Saboteur," aseaprtalated wholly to the standard Hollywood vul•peechmaJdng about the "good, little people," •Hag of characters into pulp molds...

...The most intelligent, sensitive and rewarding actress on the screen today is, in my untroubled opinion, seven year old Margaret O'Brien...

...Undeniably, there was a softening and sentimentalizing of the original...

...Amtorg, Soviet trading monopoly, is preparing a catalog of American machinery Arms and is charging $300 a page...

...books, films, snd danc* music...

...But while moat of them are yajerabU, there are always a few "sleepers" which show assise rtrJ talent sod originality, and which, in theml^rts, redeem uncounted hours in movie houses, 'ft at aignincafitiy the mystery thriller and the fantasy ¦pith most consistently among Grade B Alms are given Hants dialogue and imaginative handling...

...Housing Authority statistics, but it serves better Mr...

...The American market has for years been closed to all but s handful of bestsellers, snd a few of the more fashionable highbrows...

...Anyone who saw him in "Pal Joey" on Broadway knows that he is an unusually gifted dancer in the style of free invention...

...Tmt Curse of the Cat People" dealt, surprisingly, with the adjustment problems of a highly imaginative child, laam of the acting was amateurish and the plot a Mas uncertain as to whether it aimed at terror or aajightanmrnt...

...the startling effect sf s woman's clicking heels late at night in the shadowed city streets...

...Seltnicks sentimental purposes...

...Sore* companles will use II to 20 pages...

...An untrumpeted item called "The Whistler" made ¦ore effective, though unpretentious, use of subdued, shadowy photography for atmosphere then such a slick and careful film aa "Double Indemnity...

...Louis"), or Hollywood would have tried to reincarnate in her the early Shirley Temple...