Cinema check list

Helen Brown Norden

• THE LAST GENTLEMAN.—George Arliss' most recent picture, which presents him as a crotchety old Yankee grandfather; but though his name may be changed to Cabot Barr, he is still Shylock to me. The film is custom-made to Mr. Arliss' familiar talents, and there is one very funny and slightly sacrilegious scene in it.

• NELL GWYN.—A handsome production from London, relating the rise to infamy of England's most famous orange vendor, Mistress Gwyn. The latter character is enacted with a great deal of lusty spirit by Anna Neagle; while Sir Cedric Hardwicke makes an elegant Charles the First. The picture is quite jolly and bawdy. If the censors haven't Bowdlerized it too much, it should prove very entertaining.

• OUR DAILY BREAD.—A clumsy-footed attempt at pseudo-Fascist propaganda, involving King Vidor's personal theory of how to solve the Depression. There are a great many dreary scenes on the farm, and the big dramatic crisis of the film is whether or not an irrigation ditch is going to work. Karen Morley is in the cast, but almost no one else you ever heard of.

• THERE'S ALWAYS TOMORROW.—Binnie Barnes, British film actress, makes a creditable showing in her first American picture, although the film itself is rather an ordinary, pedestrian little thing about home life. Miss Barnes acts with sincerity and intelligence; and there are two good performances by Margaret Hamilton and a child actress named Helen Parrish, but I certainly hate to see that excellent comedian, Frank Morgan, cast as a meekly hen-pecked husband, plucking feebly at the retreating skirts of romance.

• THE BARRETTS OF WIMPOLE STREET.—A charming and frequently effective picturization of the Katharine Cornell play. Fredric March is cast as Robert Browning; Norma Shearer is a beautiful and appealing Elizabeth Barrett; and Charles Laughton is quite magnificent as that curious ogre, Father Barrett. In addition, Maureen O'Sullivan gives the most delightful performance of her career as the youngest and most rebellious Barrett sister.

• ONE NIGHT OF LOVE.—Grace Moore's musical picture which has been bowling over both critics and public to the tune of startling box office receipts. The star looks charming and sings like an angel; while Tullio Carminati scores a distinct personal triumph as her leading man.

• BRITISH AGENT.—Kay Francis as a Soviet patriot and Leslie Howard as a British diplomat, in an unconvincing picturization of R. H. Bruce Lockhart's best-seller.

• BELLE OF THE NINETIES.—The long-awaited Mae West picture, at last, and the good news is that Miss West is still herself, censors or no censors. They may have purified the lines, but there's nothing they can do about the meaning she reads into them. She could recite the Manhattan Telephone Directory and make it sound like Captain Billy's Whiz-Bang. The picture is nothing but an exhibition of the star, so if you like her—which I, for one, still do—you will get your money's worth.

• DEATH ON THE DIAMOND.—To people who know nothing about baseball, this might be quite enjoyable. It is directed by W. S. Van Dyke, the man who made The Thin Man; and the same swift technique is in evidence. Nat Pendleton and Ted Healy do pretty funny work as a comedy team.

• CHU CHIN CHOW.—An over-elaborate and quite dull British spectacle, chiefly noteworthy for the presence of that charming Oriental, Miss Anna May Wong.