The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-08-09
Reviewed by
SAMUEL BRODY


COME weeks ago worker wrote a
y letter TO the Daily" expressing
his anger and profound disgust at
film he had seen: THE Merry
Frinks."
Last night I saw the Merry
Frinks" in one of those neighbor-
hood movie chapels where workers
sit in hypnotic semi-darkness, i'm
bibing Hollywood's celluloid concep-
lions of life. at a quarter a throw.
What makes it so difficult to ap-
proaeh a film like The Merry
Frinks" with dispassionate critical
obiectivity? What makes it impos-
sible to treat it with any degree Of
serious analysis? Many of the re-
viewers in the Daily" have been
accused of being too schematie,
rubber stampy, and uncompromis-
ingly severe towards the films they
review.
Well, dear reader, make little
test one of these days, Drop in to
see any one of the Hollywood films
which concerns itself with social or
political events, any one of the So
called topical theme" films. There
Is long list to choose from:
Golden Harvest" IT Believe in
You" Heroes for Sale" mo
Greater Glory" Gabriel" Wash
ington- Merry Go Round" Forgot
ten Commandments" World in
Revolt" Come On, Marines!" Hal
lelujah, I'm a BumI" Shanghai
Madness" etc, etc.
If there is single drop of class
consciousness in your veins dust
plain consciousness, I was tempted
to sayD-if your mind is in but the
least degree open and aware of the
realities that surround you eyerv
day Of your life, you will revolt
against the wild distortions of truth
that are being offered you on the
screen. To quote the worker who
wrote the Daily" your "blood will
boil" and you will be tempted to
stand up in the theatre and call
the foul stuff that is being offered
on the audience to revolt against
them at a price. And that is pre-
cisely the reaction of those of us
who go to see these films. The
abysmally low artistic and intel
lectual level of these films cramps
your efforts to analyze them seri-
ously and in detail. Who can deny
that the average Hollywood Aim
nowadays ranks anywhere above
the level of the comic strip? And
1 believe that Comrade Burck in
a recent article set the proper tone
and critical approach towards comic
strips.
IN "The Merry Flrinks" there is
Communist whose treatment and
characterization draws even closer
our parallel between the mental
level of the bourgeois film and
comic strip. This version Of Com
munist is in no wise less carica-
tured, less Rrotesoue, less unlikely
than the Red in the comic strip re-
produced by Burck to illustrate his
article.
Would it not be a condescension
to unnecessary concessions to reply
to H. T. Webster, by saying that
Communists are not bewhiskered
monsters who prey on god-fearing
home-loving American "timi d
souls? In the case of THE Merry
Frinks" one feels almost embarrassed
even to retell the story, so consis-
tently slanderous, so insistently
idiotic and unreal is its content
Perhaps those who have had the
misfortune to see Heroes for Sale"
will get faint idea of what we
mean when we say that the Com
munist lawyer in THE Merry
Frinks" is by far more half witted,
repulsiye and pathological than
even the RED" depicted in that
film! However, hOpelesSly idiOtic
as is the "Red" in this film he still
manages to proclaim the superior
ity of the capitalist system in the
end! CThe Shiny Hollywood insects
who made this film have introduced
a huge portrait of Stain to en-
phasize the Communist feryor of
the aforementioned moron who is
offered to us as typical Red"
The actor who interprets the part
of the Communist is frankie Nc
Hugh, who until this film had acted