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ECCENTRICS ARE POPULAR

THE LATEST VOGUE STRANGE HAPPENINGS IN NEW FILMS Daftness, or—to crave the theatrical licence —that quality of being slightly “pixilated,” is on the loose in Hollywood. Even if the practically impossible feat of barring the brothers Ritz and Marx from consideration is performed, it is still necessary to report that the film mecca has become a cinemasylum for delightfully cracked eccentrics. Nobody is complaining, strangely enough, because it so happens that pictures concocted from the dizzy antics of folks who are “fetched in the haid” are craved by the box offices of the world. Among such pictures, if details were given, would be “Mr Deeds Goes to Town,” “If I Had a Million,” “It Happened One Night,” “My Man Godfrey,” and the forthcoming “Danger—Love at Work.” The noble Mr Deeds himself was regarded as somewhat of a crackbrain, and there was no question about the pixilated sisters in the same film. Laughton and Ruggles went “on the loose” in “If I Had a Million.” In “It Happened One Night” there was an awfully queer motorist, who led Gable and Claudette Colbert a merry ride. “My Man was alive with queer people, and in “Wake Up and Live” there -is a; scene involving two queer specimens. In “On the Avenue,” Cora Witherspoon affects an abnormal passion to perform on the flying trapeze. In “Pigskin Parade,” a young man played a harmonica with his nose, and in “Sing, Baby, Sing,” Adolphe Menjou was given to “swigging” bay rum and reciting Shakespeare to a hot-water bottle. THE PEMBERTONS But all these “crackpots” seem thoroughly rational when compared with the Pemberton family and friends, as they behave in Twentieth CenturyFox’s riotous comedy, “Danger—Love at Work.” Mr Pemberton is an absentminded scientist capable of the most colossal absences of mind. The role has been entrusted to Etienne Girardot. Junior Pemberton is a child prodigy who at the age of 10 is preparing to enter Harvard. Along with his genius goes a rare talent for being a nuisance —a role made to fit Bennie Bartlett, who plays it. Uncle Goliath, /ayed by Maurice Cass, is a back-to-nature convert, who abandons his 40-room mansion to live in a cave, because he’s convinced civilization is all wrong. Uncle Alan (Walter Catlett) is a stamp collector, who regards his stamps almost as living things. The famed pixilated sisters of “Mr Deeds Goes to Town” appear now as Aunt Pitty and Aunt Patty, spinster ladies who refuse to ride in anything more speedy than their 1910 electric cabriolet, and who govern their daily existence by elaborate systems of numerology. The role of Herbert Pemberton, artist of the family, has fallen to John Carradine, who was actually a painter in Greenwich Village before he ever thought of acting. Ma Pemberton, portrayed by Mary Boland, is a model of housewifly aplomb. She’s such a thoughtful mother . than when her daughter Toni exhibits a fondness for French pastry she decides to raise the child in France. But when Toni (Ann Sothern) grows up into a mature and beautiful girl, she develops the embarrassing eccentricity of confusing one fiance with another. Edward Everett Horton comes into the picture as Howard Rogers, founder of the Rogers Secret-of-Success-System, an exuder of dynamic energy,

a model on self-mastery, and a maestro in the technique of “grabbing the bull by the horns.” The only principal with anything resembling logic about him seems to be Jack Haley, who performs as a young lawyer assigned to the maddening task of getting the signatures of each of the Pembertons.

In the making of this picture, rumour had it that Norman Taurog, the director, began acting a little bit absurdly himself from over-exposure to the script!

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Permanent link to this item

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/ST19371222.2.81

Bibliographic details

Southland Times, Issue 23389, 22 December 1937, Page 8

Word Count
617

ECCENTRICS ARE POPULAR Southland Times, Issue 23389, 22 December 1937, Page 8

ECCENTRICS ARE POPULAR Southland Times, Issue 23389, 22 December 1937, Page 8