Critical Moments

Not since they made “All Quiet on the Western Front” have the gentlemen who control the destinies of Universal Pictures indulged in so unrestrained a ballyhoo in announcing the arrival of a new picture. The occasion for this exuberance was the opening at the Radio City Music Hall last evening, of “Little Man, What Now?”

In the realistic novel by the German, Hans Fallada, from which the picture was adapted, the author drew in bold strokes the story of a typical lower middle-class young German couple, married and about to have a baby who are brought face to face with the economic problems of post-war Germany. with skill and intelligence the author traces the gradual degradation of this couple who finally are crushed by system which makes no provision for their kind. First, the man loses his job because he will not marry his wife appeals to his step-mother, whom he despises, for another position, he finds himself installed as a sales man in a large Berlin clothing store but he cannot make his sales quota and is finally dismissed.

His benefactor, a friend of his stepmother’s has been sent to prison and there is no one to whom he can turn. Without funds his appearance from that of a neat white collar worker to that of a day laborer has its effect on his outlook on life but he insists upon retaining his bourgeois ideals and he still shuns the radicals. One day, while innocently watching a demonstration of workers he is struck down by the police who are attempting to break up the meeting. He then realizes that he has fallen from the white collar class and the through fills him with dread; only the faith of his wife who goes out to work by the day, saves him from becoming a social outcast. He was a young man who wanted nothing more than the right to work and live modestly, but the march of events finally breaks him completely and the book ends on this note of hopelessness and leaves the implication that the only hope for men of this type is to become class conscious and join a worker’s movement.

FILM DODGES THE ISSUE

As Fallada wrote it, “Little Man, What Now?” was a sincere, simple, meaningful story. In it was material for a real film, a film with guts, one that would make people think. Universal dodged the issues in typical movie style. Instead of setting forth a thought provoking film they have turned out a flabby, slow moving, dull, sentimental picture.

If the idea behind the book frightened the timid executives of Universal City the least they might have done was to have an entirely new plot written around the title. Certainly after one reading they knew what they were getting. To make things worse they followed with some slavishness the original plot of the story, and incidentally the most unimportant feature of the book.

Where the West Coast picture makers fell down was in the interpretation of the spirit of the book. Instead of showing that the couple realized their position was a hopeless one and certainly the things that happen to them would coincidence a low grade moron, a last minutes scene is interjected where in one of our hero’s old companions climbs into the attic a few hours after the baby is born and announces that he has a job for our then pretty down-hearted hero. Another closing bit shows the same hero, now without a white collar in dirty workman coat and cap, vowing over this newly born baby that he will fight for the youngster’s right to live.

The picture asks to question “Little Man, What Now?” and then answers it with a “Yes,” “Perhaps,” “Hope Springs Eternal,” “Maybe,””All is for the best,” and about everything else indefinite except “Love and Kisses”.

MISSED GREATNESS

I feel strongly about “Little Man, What Now?” not because it is bad picture but because it might easily have been a great film, the first of its kind to point out that not necessarily by honest, Industry and hope to men persevere. One of these days some unkind person will break into a “story conference” at Hollywood and point out that there are a few people around who although they obeyed all the rules as set down in the books, still never got anywhere.

SOME VIRTUES

“Little Man,” as Universal conceived it is not entirely without virtues. In spots the dialogue is good and some of the shots, especially the scene showing the actor walking into the clothing store and trying ion all the clothes just to rehearse a part, are unusually telling. Margaret Sullavan as Mrs. Pinenberg has acute but not coy air about her and although she is surprisingly agile for a woman about to have a baby, manages to remain convincing. Douglas Montgomery as Pinenberg is much too suave and handsome for the role of the timid clerk. He emotes much too readily. He never does seem able to make up his mind just what he is trying to be Most of the time he is just an actor.