THE CINEMA " Valley of the Giants " and "Everything
Happens to Me." At the Warner—" The Cowboy and the Lady." At the Gaumont.
Valley of the Giants begins with a series of extremely long and flowery titles explaining all those points which the first few minutes of dialogue will make crystal clear to the meanest intelligence; these pronunciamentos are backed by highly dra- matic music, which is all the less effective in its volume and efficiency in comparison with the hard-worked fiddle-and- piano of the silent days to which such titling belongs. Yet— in a perverse sort of way—this opening does establish for us the mood of our youth—the days when fisticuffs were real fisticuffs; and it is no surprise to find, quite early in the film, a large gentleman with blond moustachios who announces —" My name is Smith and they call me Ox. My mother was a hurricane and my father a ring-tailed tornado "—after which he proceeds to decimate a barfull of several hundred lumberjacks. Up to this point the story has lagged, and has been handicapped by some of the worst colour-photography yet seen; but the aperient value of the aforesaid fight makes a great difference. The film suddenly jerks into life, and the colour into a naturalism punctuated by sudden contrasts in tone which are perhaps all the more dramatic because they are unpremeditated; the flare of white smoke from a donkey engine against a glade's green and brown, or the purple feather in the heroine's hat in the monochrome of late twi- light.
But the real enchantment of Valley of the Giants is not in its colour but in its concentration on action in the open. It tells how the Californian redwood forests at the beginning of the century were raped by commercial interests who were oblivious to replanting schemes or any other plans for the future. This theme was recently elaborated by a very en- grossing American documentary film, The River; but here ou may expect no economics, no wide social sweep. The story is of the hero, played by Wayne Morris (of Kid Galahad fame), who leads the lumberjacks in war to the death against the crook-employees of big business; of how the heroine (Claire Trevor) starts on the wrong side but soon moves over to the right after a glance at the hero's flashing teeth and the blondness of his billowing hair. There is a runaway train, a fire, a dynamiting, and a fine hand-to-hand fight, to say nothing of some magnificent scenes of trees crashing to leafy death before the lumberman's accuracy of eye and axe. It is not a great film, but it has a touch of magic.
In the same programme is a film built round that enchant- ing figure of the British music hall—Max Miller. Perky as a sparrow, impertinent as a street urchin, garrulous as indeed only he could possibly be, he invests a film which is sometimes pedestrian and often shoddily made, with the glow of his strange magnetism. Everything Happens to Me reveals him as an election agent and rescuer of small boys from a badly run orphanage; the situations are impossible and the story improbable, but Max Miller remains gloriously himself—sings, talks, chuckles, gyrates, staggers, falls, recovers and continu- ously chats with a bonhomie best appreciated perhaps by his devotees from the halls—but good enough for anyone. As for some of his remarks, it is clear, as we have often suspected, that even the Censor sometimes nods, and a very good thing, too.
The Cowboy and the Lady is a very poor effort. Its pro- ducer, Samuel Goldwyn, was responsible last year for Marco Polo, one of the drearier Hollywood offerings, and in this pro- duction an even lower level is touched. All the ingredients for a big box-office success have been gathered together, but the importance of mixing, cooking, and serving the said ingredients has been utterly ignored; they remain an indiges- tible and unappetising mess. It is sad once more to see the talents of Gary Cooper so gravely wasted, while the good looks of Merle Oberon are much obscured by her unbecoming make-up. The story is, to say the least of it, unedifying, and most of the wholesome toughery one expects from the cowboy angle is swamped with the nauseating artificiality of semi- ment and sex which envelop the lady; emphatically a film
that should never have been made. BASIL WRIGHT.
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