Critical Moments by George Joel

Having spent the week-end making the rounds of Broadway’s cinema palaces I come to you this morning with a most discouraging report. I saw “Wings in the Dark” (Paramount), “The Secret Bride” (Roxy), “Hei Tiki” (Globe), “Under Pressure” (Astor), and “Society Doctor” (Mayfair) which, you must admit, is a lot of motion pictures. Especially since not one of these films was anything but routine, at best. The only film I missed was “The Good Fairy” (Music Hall) and my friends tell me that it is an unusually amusing picture, but then I have never been very lucky with “grab bags.”

“WINGS IN THE DARK” IS IMPLAUSIBLE

“Wings in the Dark” is a silly, Inane, implausible melodrama of no consequences whatever. It tells a goofy story of a dashing young airman (Cary Grant) who, just as he is about to fly to Paris “blind,” has his eyesight destroyed by the explosion of an oil stove. It is a most miraculous explosion which, although it knocks Cary across the room and blinds him, does not burn or mar his cinematic beauty.

Well, there he is helpless and discouraged but to the rescue comes a female stunt flier (Myrna Loy). She loves her aviator and unknown to him supports him while he invents a set of controls for a plan that will enable even the blind to fly. Alas, the hardhearted aviation company takes away our hero’s plane before he can finish his experiment and Myrna flies from Moscow to New York to earn $25,000. She reaches New York but can’t land because of the fog. Our hero, blind as he is, steals his plane and brings her down. Of course he regains his eyesight, to say nothing of a wife. The picture has but one virtue—excellent photography in the air. The acting, Mr. Grant’s especially, is unusually wooden. Not even a third rate stock company would stand for such stuff.

“THE SECRET BRIDE” FAST MOVING FILM

“The Secret Bride” is another melodrama but, unlike “Wings in the Dark,” this Warner production starring Barbara Stanwyck is fast moving and filled with sudden death. The leading lady is the daughter of a Governor and Warren Williams plays the Attorney General to whom she is secretly married. It seems that a convict whom the Governor pardons gives the Executive some money and then (the convict) commits suicide. It looks as though the Governor has not been quite honest. The people want him removed from office and the Attorney General must dig into his past life but his wife convinces him that Pa is not guilty and together they ferret out the dastardly plot behind the whole thing. It is all very mysterious and a trifle hard to believe. It is fair entertainment.

“HEI TIKI” PRODUCED IN NEW ZEALAND

First Division, a new company is responsible for the showing of “Hei Tiki,” a picture made and produced in New Zealand by Alexander Markey, who is a lecturer. Some years ago he visited New Zealand and became fascinated with the life of the Maori, the natives of the island. He returned some years later with a camera and spent four years filming what he believed life must have been among these Maori before the arrival of the white man. He calls his efforts “Hei Tiki,” which means “Love Charm” and that title is the most intriguing thing about it.

As a study of native life it is superficial, thin and dull. Instead of following the formula used in “Eskimo,” “Man of Aran” and other such folk-lore picture, Mr. Markey goes completely Hollywood and places his emphasis on a stupid and unconvincing love story. One of those “tabu” legends. You know —the chief’s daughter must marry the War God but is saved in the nick of time by a human from another tribe. It makes one a little nauseous because the basic material could have been fashioned into something really worth an evening in the theatre.

LOWE-MCLAGLEN AGAIN TOUGH GUYS

Edmund Lowe and Victor McLaglen once made a successful picture called “What Price Glory,” in which they were tough guys but pals after all. They have never been able to forget this formula with the result that all their pictures have a sameness about them. In their latest, “Under Pressure,” Fox has again cast them in tough guy roles. Here they are seen as “sand-hogs” digging a tunnel under a river. They fight, friendly like, over their work and a woman but when the crucial moments come they save each other from death. If you have not seen this team in action before you will get some enjoyment out of “Under Pressure” but it is so much like, in spirit anyway, their other films that if you close your eyes you soon get the idea that you have seen the picture somewhere before.

IN WHICH AN INTERNE DASHES AROUND

This is a surprisingly bad picture to come from the M-G-M studios. It is an attempt to capitalize on the success of “Men in White.” Again we have life in a metropolitan hospital and this time a dashing young interne again becomes disgusted with the incompetence of his superiors. When a rich patient wants to set him up in a clinic of his own he almost consents. The nurse he loves is disgusted and threatens to marry his interne pal. The crisis comes when our interne is shot by a gangster. He thinks he is going to die but is saved by an operation which he directs himself. A more implausible and melodramatic situation I have never seen. Not for one moment do you get the idea that “Society Doctor” is anything but the creation of a tired and harassed scenario writer.