“CYCLIC” TENDENCIES OF FILMS

Taranaki Daily News, 9 November 1935, Page 20 (Supplement)

“CYCLIC” TENDENCIES OF FILMS

FORECAST OF SEASONAL FASHIONS

Films, in their own way, are becoming as seasonal as fashions. The “cyclic” tendencies of the film factories result in sudden and usually short-lived spates of pictures, moulded to a new pattern, or style, which somebody has accidentally hit upon. Quite often the new style is really an old style revived in an up-to-date form. We have had an obvious example of this in the case of the anti-gangster pictures. But it is a poor season which provides no more than routine improvisations on the conventional models of the year before last. Usually, .at least one producer succeeds in starting something which, if not actually new, is at any rate sufficiently original to rank as new. Spring is the high spot of the year for these innovations in film entertainment. It was in the spring of 1933 that the presentation of “The Private Life of Henry VIII” started the history cycle. Last spring likewise stands out in screen history because it ushered in the era of operatic musicals with “One Night of Love.” The anti-gangster pictures will peter when the two really good ones, “G-Men” and “Public Hero Number One” have been shown throughout the country, and the less-good ones are beginning to get around. A similar fate will overtake the comedy-murder-mysteries modelled on “The Thin Man.” It is doubtful if they can last much longer at the present rat In place of these two popular fashions of the moment, the spring and the summer will bring us three new ones. Adaptations from the classics will include the Shakespearian group, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” “Romeo and Juliet,” and possibly “The Tempest”—and the literary group, headed by Garbo’s “Anna Karenina” and Colman’s “Tale of Two Cities.”

Secondly there will be large-scale spectacles of primarily pictorial appeal such as Cecil De Mille’s “The Crusades,” Fox’s “Dante Inferno” and Radio’s “She” and “The Last Days of Pompeii.” As an off-shoot of this type of picture, the two futuristic spectacles, Korda’s “Things to Come” and Gaumont-British’s “The Tunnel” have great possibilities. Tire former ‘has assumed such tremendous proportions, that if it does not cause a sensation when it is finally shown it will be a big disappointment to its makers.

Passing on to the next group, we find a healthy and invigorating collection which may be described as action pictures, produced mainly in impressive open-air settings on location. We shall probably see the first results of this in the spring, when Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s “Mutiny On The Bounty” and “China Seas” will bring a breath of seagoing air into the cinema, and Gaumont-British’s “King of the Damned” will portray the vigorous melodrama of life in a Caribbean convict settlement with a wealth of atmospheric detail rare to British films.

All sorts of minor tendencies and developments should also be chronicled. Korda may reawaken Hollywood’s interest in bizarre and supernatural themes with his two trick pictures, “The Man Who Could Work Miracles” and “The Ghost Goes West,” formerly “The Laying of the Glourie Ghost.” Walter Wanger, maker of “Private Worlds” and “Shanghai,” is intent upon the screen exploitation of elementary psychology. We may expect a series of horror films after the release of “The Bride of Frankenstein.” Universal is particularly fond of horror pictures. This company gave the world the remarkable series of Lon Chaney vehicles'some years ago and was responsible for “Frankenstein” and kindred photoplays. The same company recently announced that it would make “Dracula’s Daughter” this year'and said that the young lady would be “more sensational than her unforgettable father!” Universal will also revive Victor Hugo’s famous story, “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” and Henry Hull will probably play the role made famous by the late Lon Chaney in the silent film. M.G.M. is waiting for the reports on the success or otherwise of “The Hands of Orlac,” a gruesome drama starring the German, Peter Lorre, of “M” fame. We are to have musicals of all descriptions during the coming season. There will be up-to-date editions of “The Broadway Melody” and “The Big Broadcast.” There will be another Fred Astaire /dance-festival in “Top Hat.” There will be Busby Berkeley girl-shows from Warners, and a new Eddie Cantor extravaganza from Sam Goldwyn. Above all, there will be jpera, sung by Grace Moore, Lily Pons and all the other singing stars whom Hollywood has collected.