TWO NEW FILM PRODUCTIONS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 175, 25 July 1936, Page 7 (Supplement)

TWO NEW FILM PRODUCTIONS.

"THE UNGUARDED HOUR."

A CLEVER MYSTERY DRAMA

(By JOHN STORM.)

"The Unguarded Hour" is the intriguing title of an equally intriguing mystery drama in which twelve clever people hold the attention from moment to moment, giving it all the tensity of a good stage play. This one is almost ■unique among pictures of its class. These are mostly led by two stars, with perhaps a supporting third, and a set of neat small parts as background. The small parts will often be finished performances with very little to finish. In "The Unguarded Hour" every one of the twelve must pull his own weight, with perhaps the exception of one capable actress—Ailean Pringle. She is the unhappy lady on one episode of whose past career the plot hinges. Even so her one little scene in a flat with the villain of the piece is quite memorable. Franchot Tone heads the list, and contrary to custom with this born torsolemn person, a young lawyer just about to become attorney-general of England, mentor of his kind, he is here cast as a He is called away from a holiday with his young wife—Loretta Young—to take the side of the Crown in a remarkable murder case. A man, played by Dudley Digges, is on trial for the murder of his wife, whom he is alleged to have pushed over a chlf. The man claims to have one witness, a mysterious woman not to be found, who, according to his story, had passed him on the cliff at the moment when he was crying out to his wife to be carefu . A Mental Mosaic.

The usually gamesome tormentor Franchot makes an equally annoyin D legal opponent and makes hay of ttoe •whole story. Meanwhile, that consummate artist, Roland Young, comforts Franchot's young wife and makes him self generally absurd, taking Fran»-hot, s place as godfather at the I friend's child, etc. Lewis Stone is in his element as the chief of Scotland Yard. Jessie Ralph and E. C. * the realistic old Lord and Lady HatliaVaj. The lady takes a morbid interest

in the case, while tie lord cherishes a serious sympathy for the "murderer"; perhaps, he suggests, "she needed, murdering." All this is the froth or the frilling. The serious drama is enacted in the library of the young advocate's house. Here the chief of Scotland Yard listens joyously while Roland Young stages an imaginary trial. Franchot himself is in the dock for not remembering exactly what he did from moment to moment in the hour of yesterday chosen on which to cross question him —"the unguarded hour!" The time is later found really to coincide with some further difficult happenings, in a flat in a remote street. Here the villain ties up parcels of love letters written by other men to his wife, N —, these to be offered for sale at two thousand a parcel. With these star players it is all an artistic piece of stage work as well as an exhilarating study of the three separate pieces of three separate stories fitted together in a mental mosaic.

"The Moon's Our Home." t In "The Moon's Our Home," the dramatic actress, Margaret Sullavan, proves her versatility by appearing as a rollicking tomboy. The picture is chiefly interesting on this account. The romping, hilarious mood is thinly disguised by the legend that she is plain Sally Brown, who has become Cherry Chester the film star, but the disguise is quite unnecessary. We would have just as agreeably accented a temperamental lady on her own account, for this reason, to play a film star, for a film star is just as unacceptable as, say, for an editor to play an editor in a story or a drama! It would bore them both. So that here we see the versatile Margaret in a mood of boredom playing she is married to her former real life husband, Henry Fonda. « Henry seems to take the fooling very seriously, and one wonders if >-he world tries these games on to see what will happen to the heart of former husband. At least one thing happens to .Henry. He stands out as a definite entity in the midst of tornadoes of broken crockery in handsome interiors, and glissades in snow shoes in wintry exteriors. Her leading man, in fact, for the first time in her screen career, overshadows the gifted young actress. The effect is

most odd. It leaves us with a sense of wishing to see the film over again to find out what Margaret really did in it. We remember that she fell in a heap on the floor when she got grandma's telegram to say that grandma was ill! And we know that she threw the furniture about when she came home and found grandma quite well! We remember that she ran away and disappeared when she had spent five minutes with Henry Fonda in the back seat of her grandma's landau—grandma's coachman waited for motors to be safe before he would drive the family out in one. Henry had tumbled into the landau for sanctuary with a sleeve torn off his coat, because his lady admirers had met him at his hotel. Henry was not reallv John Smith, but an explorer and author with a fancy name, but he left the common one on the seat of the landau when he jumped out with the address of his mountain "hideout." A Forgotten Circumstance..

Miss Sullavan, we remember, followed him thence as plain Sally Brown. Thinking him plain John Smith, in a moment of excitement and frenzy of cold and warmth she married him. The same evening she left him because the musk in her perfume reminded him of a mankilled in Java or an African swampy I forget which, if either. Then she tuf-ns up at home in time to go gay, as a future millionairess should at her betrothal party to her cousin, Charles Butterworth, the little circumstances of the "Wilt thou take" of the mountains seemejl forgotten. Charles Butterworth turns out to be not only a millionaire, but Henry Fonda's old friend. Henry is invited to the party. When the two, he and Margaret, meet at the witching hour of the New Year, then they remember they are married, and when they find out that respectively they are a film star and an author, they roll on the floor with rage. Grandma, an aeroplane, even the police, come to the rescue two or three days later, and there is some kind of hope that at least while they are "in the moon" they will be happy. And artistically no one offers the suggestion that it is the only happy j

place. The excellent comedian, Charles Butterworth, supports, and so does Beulah Bondi, of "Lone Pine" fame. Those who enjoyed "Private Lives" will find an offering much of its kind. No_ particular storv, and no particular acting, but a Teat deal of fooling makes Henry Fonda m reality, and Margaret Sullavan a versatility'in motion.