The Mysterious Island

The Mysterious Island (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer). The strangely prescient fantasies of Jules Verne are essentially scenarios, and good ones. Monstrous engines, undiscoverable worlds, half-human and superhuman people which no words, even when manipulated with Verne's genius for combining the staccato and the nebulous, could quite make real, become more interesting when you see them concretely produced for the camera. This is one of Verne's submarine pieces. Director Lucien Hubbard has caught the right atmosphere and Lionel Barrymore seems to enjoy his role as the submarine builder and conqueror of the fish-men of the ocean bottom. But The Mysterious Island is too long and too complicated and its fantasy is too often choked by the plot. Good shots: the sunken Roman galley, manned with the skeletons of slaves shackled in their seats; the crew of the submarine dressing to go out by pushing a lever which drops diving suits over them; the fish-men, whose bodies are shaped like diving suits, getting ready for war.

The Kibitzer (Paramount). A comedian named Harry Green does justice to the stout humor of this play which Actor Edward G. Robinson helped to write and starred in on the legitimate stage last year. Wall Street as seen from a corner store uptown by a market-wise seller of cigars is the background. Typical gag: Harry Green betting on a horse because the horse is going to retire from the track and has never won a race and it is his belief that every horse must win at least one race sometime. Best shot: interview between the cigar store owner and the millionaire stock trader.

Tiger Rose (Warner). Lenore Ulric amply proved that this weak-kneed melodrama of strong men and a siren in the Canadian Northwest was effective in the theatre. Bright-eyed little Lupe Velez lacks the finesse that Belasco taught Lenore Ulric, but makes up for it to some extent by her vivacity, her Mexican accent, and the songs she sings occasionally in a voice sharp as a cactus, shrill and toothy, but somehow attractive. Best shot: Bull Montana wiping his nose with his shirt sleeve.

Seven Keys to Baldpate (RKO). Earl Derr Biggers wrote the story. George M. Cohan made a play of it. Douglas MacLean was in it as a silent picture. As a talkie it proves again that the mechanism of the mystery story is an ideal device for comedy. Richard Dix is the young author who bets that he can write a book in 24 hours and sits down to work in a lonely house in the country to which he believes he has the only key. Typical shot: $25,000 in stage money burning in the fireplace at Baldpate.

Sally (First National). The difference between a musical comedy on the stage and one on the screen is that the size of everything is doubled and its effectiveness cut in half. This is a photograph, in pink technicolor shades, of a show without much wit or any good new songs. It is partly redeemed by the expert dancing of Marilyn Miller. Best dance: "A Wild, Wild Rose."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.