(United Artists—Samuel Goldwyn) was adapted by Sidney Howard from Zoe Akins’ play. The Greeks Had a Word for It. While the original title might possibly have lead cinemaddicts to suppose that the Greeks had a word for Clara Bow, even more probably it would have caused them to make wrong conjectures in classical obscenity. The plural pronoun can therefore be construed as an especially devious example of the skill with which the cinema defends its patrons from their own prurience. In his other improvements on the Akins play, Producer Goldwyn was guided less by a sense of decency than a sense of decoration. Ina Claire, Joan Blondell and Madge Evans are even more alluring than the ladies who occupied their roles in the theatre. Their clothes were designed for them by Mile Gabrielle Chanel, who was summoned to Hollywood in person for the purpose.
The story itself remains about as it was on the stage, except that Jean (Ina Claire) has been made more important than Polaire (Madge Evans). The picture starts when Jean returns from Europe, eager to make friends with money. Double-crossing her companions, she tries first to steal the aged “fiance” of Schatze (Joan Blondell), then appropriates a vain pianist who has taken a passing fancy to Polaire. Finally she meets the father of Polaire’s most devoted admirer and in-veigles him into matrimony. There follows the one scene in which the cinema does not quite measure up to the play; namely, where Schatze and Polaire, over a bottle of champagne, commiserate with Jean about her wedding. Appalled at the prospect of a honeymoon, Jean removes her wedding dress and with her friends goes to Paris, accoutered in her underclothes and bent on misbehavior.
Emma (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer). This story, of an aging servant who marries her employer, is more lachrymose than the others in which Marie Dressier has played since her rediscovery two years ago. A chronicle of defeated loyalty, it might have been done with less sentimental relish for the misfortunes of the principal character, but it is still an interesting, sometimes powerful picture which deserves the monetary rewards which it will doubtless achieve. Miss Dressler’s troubles start when she marries the inventor whose children she has helped to rear. They resent the marriage; when the inventor dies, leaving all his money to his wife, they suggest that she has murdered him with an overdose of strychnine. The only member of the brood who defends her is a blacksheep named Ronnie (Richard Cromwell) who is killed while flying to the trial in which the old nurse is acquitted. She gives her traducers the money she has inherited and is last seen as a menial again, in service with another family, the smallest member of which has just misbehaved himself on her lap.
Like most of Miss Dressler’s roles, this one is validated, less by her acknowledged skill as an actress, than by the vitality and glow of her own extraordinary personality. She personifies, more than she impersonates, a woman who, nourished by experience, faces her own age with equanimity and has courage enough not to hate her inferiors for their trivial misdeeds. What would otherwise have been a routine tear-jerker is thus strengthened with some measure of warmth and humanity. Typical shot: Miss Dressier arising in court to contradict her lawyer when he belittles her accusers.
Prestige (RKO-Pathe) is a tedious hyperbole concerned with Army life in an Indo-Chinese penal colony. Ann Harding suffers the difficulties customary for heroines so situated: her husband (Melvyn Douglas) in his own phrase is “going to pieces.” A Negro minion kills the admirer (Adolphe Menjou) with whom she endeavors to escape to Paris. There follows a prison riot in which Douglas redeems his prestige by switching his rebellious charges with a stock-whip. Good shot: the Negro servant looking mournfully at Ann Harding after he has murdered Menjou.
The Silent Witness (Fox). Situation in a mystery play simply means predicament. The predicament herein set forth is that of an elderly gentleman (Lionel At-will) who tries to save his son from the consequences of murder by confessing to the crime himself. The victim in the case is the son’s handsome blonde mistress (Greta Nissen). In court, circumstantial evidence has nearly convicted the father when a new witness appears. This is a mild mannered Cockney whose presence at the scene of the killing no one had suspected. His testimony clears father and son and indicates that the taking off of Miss Nissen was less deplorable than it seemed.
Well-paced, well-played. The Silent Witness, adapted from a play of the same name which ran in Manhattan last year, is a high grade stock product, with no undue pretensions. Good shot: Miss Nissen, who made her stage debut as an angel but has since concentrated upon demimondaines, sneering at her lover (Bramwell Fletcher) with such unpleasant petulance that, despite her beauty, spectators can condone his violence.
More Must-Reads from TIME
- How Canada Fell Out of Love With Trudeau
- Trump Is Treating the Globe Like a Monopoly Board
- Bad Bunny On Heartbreak and New Album
- See Photos of Devastating Palisades Fire in California
- 10 Boundaries Therapists Want You to Set in the New Year
- The Motivational Trick That Makes You Exercise Harder
- Nicole Kidman Is a Pure Pleasure to Watch in Babygirl
- Column: Jimmy Carter’s Global Legacy Was Moral Clarity
Contact us at letters@time.com