(2 of 3)
Splendid is the screen play of William Wister Haines, who adapted his own novel, no other writer participating; praiseworthy the showmanship of Producers Hal Wallis and Sam Bischoff for keeping out the hokum that could easily have spoiled a thrilling picture. The magnificent generating-plant shots were made at Boulder Dam by Cameraman Byron Haskin. Other great scenes—the fight in the poolroom; Red and Slim racing up a wooden tower; Pop's face (J. Farrell MacDonald) as he watches Slim throw his first bolt to Red; Red and Slim tearing along a dirt road on their way to a job. Best and most important element of Slim is the skilful underplaying of Henry Fonda. Following an entirely different but hardly less excellent role than in You Only Live Once, Slim ought to make young Mr. Fonda thought of when Academy awards are handed round.
The Girl Said No (Grand National), first full-length feature produced on Grand National's new lot, marks the film debut of Librettist William Schwenck Gilbert & Composer Arthur Seymour Sullivan. To stage Gilbert & Sullivan in the U. S. costs nothing in royalties, because no U. S. copyrights ever existed except for The Pirates of Penzance. But because the D'Oyly Carte Company of London has blocked screenings in Great Britain by setting impossibly high royalties on the original versions, Hollywood has heretofore shunned the popular, 19th-Century comic operas.
Grand National simply proceeded with versions pirated from authentic London performances half a century ago by representatives of U. S. managers. The singers, easily recruited, are veterans of old U. S. stock companies: Frank Moulan, William Danforth, Vivian Hart, Vera Ross. Studio budgets being limited, Grand National's script demanded no lavish sets of the kind generally used for musical extravaganzas. The device used to assemble the best bits of Gilbert & Sullivan for the screen was to write a story around a group of unemployed singers who pass their idle evenings singing in a cellar.
Jimmie (Robert Armstrong), a braggart race-track bookie, bets Chuck (Harry Tyler) and Pick (Ed Brophy) $1,000 that he can date Pearl (Irene Hervey), a dime-a-dance girl at Swingland, without spending over $10. It costs him his whole bankroll as well as the bet. To trick her into paying his debt, Jimmie renews her acquaintance, masquerades as a theatrical talent scout anxious to promote her. Having contracted to put her name in lights within 60 days for a $1,000 fee, he suddenly encounters the defunct Hathaway troupe. Rehearsing for old times' sake, they trill beautifully through ''It Really Doesn't Matter" (Ruddigore), "The Magnet & the Churn" (Patience), ''Poor Little Buttercup" and "Monarch of the Sea" (H. M. S. Pinafore).