Evening star., 1933-02-19
DERCY HAMMOND'S recent
- tribute to the cinema is en-


couraging. For too Ions
now it has been the habit
of $4.40 patrons to turn up their
noses at the films. Now, how
ever. that the word movies" has
been replaced by cinema" ano
the just-as-British films" this
branch of the arts may be said te
be headed for greener pastures
verbally as we'll as technically.
This Is as it should be. Adult
persons in and out of the the
ater world have begun to realize
that while Hollywood still may
not be the haven for week END
quiet or the best place in the
world to entertain friends at
bridge and golf, it is becoming a
real mecca for Serious-minded
artists. Even if you do not in
tend to stay there for life, 1t is
part of perhaps an important slice
of your life to see how the cinema
Is behaving itself.
Mr.. Hammond has said that
sCavalcade" is the best enter
tainment" of the year. The word
is well used. It is something that
the theater often overlooks. TAKE,
for instance, those admirable
young thespians who make up
the Group Theater in New York.
Last season they presented play
about the depression. 1t was bril-
liantly performed. But 1t was a
colossal failure. They wondered
why. 1t just didn't happen to be
good entertainment.
The theater, in these days OF
uncertainty, has as its strongest
asset the fact that it can take
people out of themselves and
plunge them in an unreality. Peo-
ple no longer want to be either
educated or preached to by the
theater. They want to laugh or
to cry-but they do not want to
have a finger pointed at them.
One of the cinema's happieSt
characteristics is that it is light
hearted and gay and that 1t
doesn't do too many lower
depths" While it may be chas-
tiSed for being silly and some
times vulgar, while many Of its
themes are leveled at kindergar-
ten mentalitieS, it still keeps on
with an eye for mirth, and even
If it doesn't always get there, it
at least continues trying to have
a good time.
The stage tends, too often per-
4haps, toward the arty. The
public, for instance, did not take
to 1.-The Good Earth" because II
swas slow-paced and because its
heroine died at the end. We are
convinced that Katharine Cor
nelPs new play, "Alien Corn" will
not be oversucceSsful, because IN
1t Miss Cornell breaches mainly
for art and lets the gentler pas
sions tumble down hill. She is
soft and she is lovely and her
mimicking of piano playing should
be observed by all those who are
forced to initiate musical gentry
IN their plays, but, when in the
end Of the play one of her lovers
lies at her feet with a bullet in
his breast, when the other char
acters are rehearSing their grief
in soft and loud whisperingS, and
she cries out that at last she has
found freedom and that she will
off to Vienna, there to pursue her
musical studies unmoleSted, you
are not so excited as you might
have been if she had gone off in
stead on a mission of brotherly OF
other kind of love.
X II X
THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR
which has inaugurated the
idea of rating current plays II
dollars and cents, leads one te
initiate this practice so far a:
entertainments" which h ave
come to this city are concerned
In this brief table, the genera
entertainment value" of current
plays is guessed at, and the film!
as well. These are merely zen.
tertainment" valueS-and rea.
sons therefore. One dollar is tht
top award:
THE GREEN PASTURES
One dollar. The reasons for thi!
the Pulitzer gentlemen have tole
you about.
"ENCORE"-M Minus 10 cents
Even Miss Barrymore couldn'
bring this one up to the credit
class.
"CYNARA"-Nine cents. 4
smooth, likeable film treatmen
Of a smooth, likeable play.
II AM A FUGITIVE FROM 4
CHAIN GANG"-Ninety-one cents
A brutal and tragic and Slight,
Exaggerated story about a bruta
Hand tragic situation in the South
DESIGN FOR LIVING"-Nine
ktY-tWo cents. The price on thi