The Washington times., 1932-04-20
One Thing Right
In producing a picture or


the obligatory thing is to get down to the essential
: thing and to get that exactly right The minor de-
of Grand Hotel" is concerned with two couples whose
lives brush each other at the beginning and collide
with each other at the end. One couple is aging,
tired and desperate ballet dancer who is losing her
popularity, and gentleman thief; the other couple is
a business driven to dishonesty by force of cir
cumstance, and rather nice, rather ordinary stenog
rapher, who adds to her professional income by going
on trips with her employers
In the movie version we are told the things,
but quite different things. For the dancer
have "the divine Garbo," looking desperately beauti
full for the stenographer have Joan Crawford,
looking very much like Carlo and beautiful in her
own right and acting like young lady from Miss
Spences school who is doing bit of stenography for
lark. If you cannot believe in the despair of the
dancer her love affair with the gentleman thief has
meaning. If you cannot believe in the sim
picity of the stenographer her unovely loveess af
ta1r with a business man is impossible.
AS said, the movie of "Grand HOTEL is fine show
One reason is that Grea Carlo cannot appear the
screen without an amazing concentration of your in
magnetic. Miss Crawfords appearance, her ease and
her humor contribute to the end John Barry
more again exposes himself to comparison with his
brother, but this time off fairly we'll, although
he is not impressive. The two other men, Wallace
Beery as the business man and Lionel Barrymore
live, create the picture Their parts acted in New
York by two men almost unknown before, Segfried
Kumanp ;da and Sam Jaffe It is because Beery and
that they had definite meaning in the structure of the
entire movie that thought of the others who
had been SO impressive year ago.
Apparently it is just easy to miss your own point
the point of else's play. Over her sigma
ture Miss Fannie Hurst is announcing:
'My idea of an authors dream of the supreme ad.
venture realized last night when behed my Sym
phOny of Six Million" brilliantly to life under flaw
less direction and casting.'
A Simple Point
The point of this movie is that DOCTOR who is a
genius gives his service to the poor and under pres
sure from his family moves from the Ghetto to Park
Avenue and becomes fashionable physician for
who allow themselves nervous breakdowns
Although him do nothing but feel fat ladies'
pulses and give them few pills, his hands are photo
graphed the "millon-dollar hands" of great
geon Then he has to perform operation on his
father and his father dies.
Obviously the of the drama is that because he
has abandoned surgery and become popular pill
prescrber to the rch his hands have lost their cum
ming; but this is indicated in the picture OBJ
viously too, the doctors redemption must come by
giving up his rich life and returning to surgery He
his profession entirely and only back to it be-
the crippled girl whom he has always loved and
whom he has almost forgotten in his handsome days
on Park Avenue, virtually tricks him into operating
on her.
The whole picture is obviously Fannie Hurst's
'Humoresque" with medical BACKGROUND and all
talking It happens that "Humoresque' needed sound
and that this picture needs movement. I found it
amazing that in the whole picture there nothing
to after the first few shots of the East Side of New
York. And again the entertainment the movies always
give was present particularly because excellent
stage actor Gregory Ratoff, played the part of the
conventional ideastc, simple Jewish father, and by
some inner conviction made it appear real.