The New Pictures: New Pictures: Oct. 31, 1938

The Arkansas Traveler (Paramount) carries a dedication, quoted from LIFE, to “William Allen White … a living symbol of small-town simplicity and kindliness and common sense.” Unsentimental cinemaddicts, however, will perceive that the real purpose of the picture is not so much to pay tribute to that celebrated Kansan as to carry its star, Bob Burns, a step closer to the peculiar niche of public approbation once occupied by the late Will Rogers.

Functioning as a kind of hobo ex machina, Bob Burns arrives by freight train in a town resembling Emporia, Kans., takes up residence in the county jail at the invitation of the kind-hearted constable (Irvin S. Cobb). Finding confusion in the affairs of the town newspaper run by Martha Allen (Fay Bainter), he ends it by putting things right between Judy (Jean Parker) and her hotheaded boy friend (John Beal), unmasking the town crook (Lyle Talbot) and building a radio station. Principal cinemaattribute of the late Will Rogers was to make it seem that Right not only triumphed on all occasions but that it did so without working up a perspiration. Strict adherence to the Rogers formulagives The Arkansas Traveler,first picture in which Burns has appeared as a star, much of the same amiable, folksy entertainment value.

To capitalize on celebritieswho know little about acting, the cinema long ago adopted the technique of casting them in roles related to but not identical with their activities in real life. This scheme has worked well with such heterogeneous oddities as the Dionnes, Sonja Henie, Lily Pons and Max Baer. The Arkansas Traveler can be regarded as another example of the same school. Robin Burns is a 42-year-old Arkansan who grew up in Van Buren, Ark., became an itinerant laborer, vaudeville comedian and hobo until he joined the Marines in 1917. Most noteworthy achievement of Robin Burns up to this time was the invention and mastery of the bazooka, a homemade horn composed of two gas pipes and a whiskey funnel, which General Pershing once borrowed and tried to play in a Paris restaurant.

After the War, Burns and bazooka toured in smalltime vaudeville for ten years, rose to the height of running his own carnival show. In 1930, when vaudeville collapsed, Burns tried radio and pictures. Finally Rudy Vallee gave him a part on his program. Burns was a hit and his income thereafter zoomed. As estimated for tax collectors, it was $1,500 in 1934, $9,000 in 1935, $100,000 in 1936 and $400,000 last year, when he not only played second leads in Paramount pictures but shared top honors with Bing Crosby on Kraft Cheese broadcasts and wrote syndicated articles for 240 U. S. papers.

On the air and in print the Burns character is that of a cracker-barrel philosopher, whose favorite characters (both fictional) are his Aunt Doody and Grandpa Snazzy. In real life Cracker Barrel Burns has an $85,000 house, amuses himself with amateur astronomy, maintains the common touch by driving about in a Ford. His next picture will be I’m From Missouri.

Five of a Kind (Twentieth Century-Fox) indicates that something drastic will have to be done about the Dionne Quintuplets. In this, their third full-length screen appearance, they give no impression of taking their profession seriously. In the first place, none of the quintuplets has bothered to learn English. In the second place, what they speak, although it sounds vaguely like French, is really some sort of squirrel talk, whose complete unintelligibility to outsiders appears to delight rather than distress the Dionnes.

Far from being camera shy, the Dionnes seem a shade jaded by acting. One or two of them usually appear to be dreaming. The others engage in deplorably obvious scene stealing, from each other as well as the adults in the cast. The Dionne disdain for story values and decorum is only less marked than their disdain for their public which, in Five of a Kind, is most apparent when they are called upon to render the simple little nursery ballad, Freère Jacques. The Dionnes are so impudent as to sing it in five different keys, squealing and chuckling as they do so. Throughout the rest of the picture they amuse themselves by a sleepy race on rocking horses, frightening five cocker spaniel puppies and misbehaving at the tea table. To an outsider the only plausible excuse for the Dionnes’ attitude is that they feel themselves underpaid.For their first picture they got only $50,000 which was mere diaper pin money. Their present contract calls for $300,000 plus royalty but their next one should be even more favorable.

The contempt shown by the Dionnes for the story of Five of a Kind is by no means inexcusable. The cinema struggle to fit such curiosities into a plausible narrative always includes Jean Hersholt, as Dr. Luke, and John Qualen in a somewhat libelous interpretation of the squintuplets’ father. Five of a Kind winds this amorphous group into a tangled web of rivalry and romance between two ill-mannered newspaper and radio commentators (Claire Trevor and Cesar Romero). Best shot: all five Dionnes sneering at kindly Actor Hersholt.

Service de Luxe (Universal). During the regime of benign, gnome-like little “Uncle Carl” Laemmle, corpses were so prevalent in Universal productions that they became practically the company’s trademark, and every sound stage on the lot was a makeshift torture chamber. Under its new board of directors, headed by saturnine Banker J. Cheever Cowdin, Universal has completely reversed its trend. Instead of Boris Karloff, today its top star is Deanna Durbin. Instead of morbid criminology its forte is a peculiarly blithe brand of girlish comedy of which Service de Luxe is the latest sample.

In Service de Luxe, Constance Bennett reacts to an emotional crisis principally by changing her clothes with a rapidity which sets a record for her sartorially notable screen career.

The crisis is occasioned by a handsome young inventor (Vincent Price, onetime stage lead to Helen Hayes in Victoria Regina) who bitterly resents her professional efforts to manage his career. Chic, wholesomeand moderately funny, Service de Luxe benefits by characteristic performances from Charles Ruggles, Helen Broderick and Mischa Auer, an unusually bright script. Best line: Broderick’s description of the meeting between Price and Bennett: “When freak meets freak.”

Also Showing

Listen, Darling (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer). Adolescent romance between Freddie Bartholomew, now 14½ and equipped with a changing voice, and Judy Garland, in a story by Katharine Brush.