“Let’s Try Again,” showing at the Music Hall this week in which Diana Wynyard and Clive Brook play the leading roles, will be familiar to those among you who saw Vincent Lawrence’s play “Sour Grape,” which was adapted from that work. Unfortunately “Let’s Try Again” will also be familiar to anybody who is addicted to attending movie theatres.
Its theme is the very antiquated one in which a couple after ten years of marital relationship become imbued with the idea that they cannot get along and should be divorced but before taking this step they decide to separate for a short time. What happens? They both soon find that they need each other and all thoughts of divorce are banished.
Despite its hackneyed theme “Let’s Try Again” is a slightly better than the average film. The acting, especially that of the leading players, is superior and the dialogue not nearly so dull as you might expect. The danger in pictures of this sort is that it becomes too “preachy” and stuffy. Worthington Minor, who directed the film, avoided this common fault by skillfully injecting a dose of unobstrusive humor into several of the scenes.
MORE DICKENS
What with “David Copperfield,” “The Tale of Two Cities” and one or two other Dickens novels in the process of picturization, it does seem as though we are in for a “Dickens of a year.” The latest Dickens to receive a film treatment is “The Old Curiosity Shop” which will be made in England by the British and Dominions Productions Ltd. It will be released in this country by United Artists and the cast will be headed by an American actor. Herbert Wilcox of the British company is now in this country looking for an American actor and an American director.
FROM THE FILM PRESS
“Lee Tracy was a second lieutenant in the Army during the war.” (He has never gotten over it).
“Ben Bernie, the band leader, has thirteen instrumentalists and three soloists in his band.” (You would hardly expect to find seven doctors, three dentists and six plumbers in a dance orchestra).
“Rosemary Ames earned her first dollar by walking dogs at ten cents an hour.” (The condition of her own dogs after the ten hour hike is not mentioned but I do wish some movie person would admit that she once worked in a laundry or washed dishes).
“Warner Oland when working in a picture carried his lunch, prepared by his wife, to the studio in a common dinner pail?”—(Damndemocratic of him—but he really should have his chauffeur lug it along).
“Prue Leyton got her first stage job with the Theatre Guild in New York because she could sing cowboy songs.” (The show isn’t mentioned but if it were something by Shaw or O’Neill the lady performed quite a feat).
“Bing Crosby recently purchased an interest in a prize fighter.” (A handy man to have around when he is crooning).
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
