Spencer Tracy, under Fritz Lang's direction, gave a fine performance in Fury, an uncompromising study of mob madness that had many a thrilling moment. This is one of them, where the mob tries to break into the jail in order to lynch one of the inmates. Failing to get its intended victim, the mob burns down the jail.
One of the best comedies in recent years was My Man Godfrey, which Gregory LaCava produced and directed for Universal in 1936. William Powell gave a polished performance, while Carole Lombard turned out to be one of the best zanies on the screen.
In Three Smart Girls, a hitherto unknown youngster named Deanna Durbin leaped into instant popularity. Universal promptly featured her in One Hundred Men and a Girl, with Leopold Stokowski. It made a star of her, and she became one of Universal's biggest moneymakers. Thanks to exceptionally intelligent handling by her producer, Joseph Pasternak, and her director, Henry Koster, she appeared in a series of pictures that took her through the difficult years of adolescence with undiminished popularity.
Lloyds of London made a star of Tyrone Power overnight. Henry King directed this historical film for Twentieth Century-Fox in 1936. Heading the cast were Freddie Bartholomew, Madeleine Carroll, and Power.
Universal remade the Edna Ferber-Jerome Kern musical Show Boat in 1936 and did a splendid job. James Whale, taking time out from horror pictures, directed it. Irene Dunne, as Magnolia, Allan Jones, as Gaylord, Charles Winninger, as Captain Andy, and Helen Westley, as Mrs. Hawks. Helen Morgan repeated her stage role.
From a volume of short stories by Roark Bradford, Marc Connelly fashioned the play The Green Pastures, which ran for years in New York and on the road. The film version, produced by Warners and directed by Connelly and William Keighlev, was almost as successful.
Two years after their initial triumph in The Thin Man, Myrna Loy, William Powell, and Asta appeared in its successor, After the Thin Man. For once, the sequel was up to the original. It took courage for Columbia to transfer George Kelly's Pulitzer Prize play, Craig's Wife, to the screen, for the theme--at it is no virtue to be too good a housekeeper--ran contrary to the best movie traditions. Although nothing like a smash hit, the picture fared encouragingly well, thanks to an uncompromisingly honest performance by Rosalind Russell and to fine direction by one of Hollywood's few women directors, Dorothy Arzner.
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