Cinema: The New Pictures: Apr. 24, 1933

Today We Live (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer). On the day that she hears her father has been killed in the War, Diana Boyce-Smith (Joan Crawford) makes the acquaintance of an exceedingly tactless young American who has come to England to rent her house. Shortly after she has sent her brother, Ronnie, and her fiance. Claude, off to man a torpedo-launch together on the coast of France, she finds out that she really loves not Claude (Robert Young) but the American, Richard Bogard (Gary Cooper). The troubles that arise from this situation are what you might expect in the first contribution to cinema by gloomy Author William Faulkner.

Diana, to avoid letting down her fiance, goes to join him and her brother (Franchot Tone) in France. On hearing a report of Bogard’s death in flying school, she goes to live sinfully with Claude. When the report turns out to be false, she is placed in a quandary which her two admirers try as darkly as possible to solve. First Bogard takes Claude on a bombing trip in his plane, rather hoping that he will be shot. Claude and Ronnie return the courtesy by inviting Bogard to come with them on an expedition to blow up a German cruiser in Kiel. On this escapade, Claude gets shot blind; Diana, almost prepared to let him down at last, has to do the right thing, stay with him. Bogard does the right thing also; he volunteers for a suicide assignment. There is only one Right Thing left to do. Ronnie and Claude do it by beating Bogard to his job.

Despite the fact that all these macabre heroics lead to a comparatively happy ending, Today We Live, adapted by Edith Fitzgerald and Dwight Taylor, is unmistakably a Faulkner production. Author Faulkner constructed it on the lines of his short story “Turn About,” published in the Satevepost last year. It has all the Faulkner mannerisms from sentimental morbidity to painfully telegraphic dialog of which the following is an example:

Ronnie: Good girl.

Diana: Like to hear you say that.

Ronnie: Right. Good girl.

It has also in common with most of Author Faulkner’s fictions a property which his mannerisms have caused his admirers to under-emphasize: an exciting story, with emotional content fit for mass consumption, sharply imagined and compactly told. Director Hawks, always at his best when dealing with dangerous machinery, makes the voyages of the torpedo-launch the most exciting sequences. Good shot: the funeral, with candles on a bar and a matchbox for a coffin, of Wellington, Ronnie’s fighting cockroach.

Be Mine Tonight (Gaumont) is distinguished from most musical pictures of its type by a naive charm and the resounding voice of Tenor Jan Kiepura. Its story is a composite of almost all Alpine operettas. An opera singer, Enrico Ferraro (Kiepura) escapes his domineering female manager, goes off holidaying in a Swiss village. There, just as his identity is about to be revealed, he gets an obliging stranger whom he has met on the train to pose as Ferraro; then he pretends to be the impostor’s secretary. This leads to the simpler forms of mountain comedy when the stranger, who turns out to be an eccentric crook, is called upon for a song; also when the stranger makes advances to the village belle (Magda Schneider) in whom the singer has taken an interest. The situation is untangled when she demands a serenade. When police try to arrest the swindler they naturally get the wrong man. Then comes the anticipated scene in which, to establish his identity, Enrico Ferraro sings arias from Rigoletto at police headquarters.

Polish Tenor Jan Kiepura, who sang with the Chicago Civic Opera two years ago, has immense assurance and an infectious smile which are acceptable substitutes for acting ability. His voice, which loses none of its quality in recording, is so pleasant that you do not object to almost incessant renditions of the picture’s otherwise unremarkable waltz theme song. Be Mine Tonight was first made in German by UFA. Gaumont-British sent a supporting cast to Berlin to remake it in English. Universal liked the British version—directed by Russian Director Anatole Litwak—enough to buy the U. S. rights.

Elmer the Great (First National), based on a play by Ring Lardner and George M. Cohan, is a sophisticated version of baseball’s saga of the yap rookie who makes good. This is the second time the play has been done in sound but the treatment is fresh, the characters new. Elmer (Joe E. Brown) is a temperamental yap. The Chicago Cubs buy his contract, find he has lost interest in baseball, make a deal with his girl (Patricia Ellis) to lure him into camp. There he bats out their best pitcher, walks off raging because they are incompetent. Between fits of injured dignity Elmer finds time to bat the team into the “World Serious,” then riots himself into jail, refuses to come out and play. When he is finally released his confreres suspect that he has been dickering with city slickers to throw the game. Only in the last ten seconds of a wild inning does the panic-stricken team realize that Elmer is out-slicking the slickers.

Joe E. Brown plays with deadly seriousness which is at times intensely funny, and with few of the rubberface antics which used to make his acting tasteless. A more loyal baseball enthusiast than Elmer the Great. Cinemactor Brown is part owner of the Kansas City Blues.