Word: films
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Sizing up the situation. Film Daily's Chester B. Bahn put his finger on the real danger of Chicago's proposed action, hinted that the industry ought to purge itself lest "a municipality . . . tomorrow . . . may similarly attack the alternative feature & shorts program, and the day after by legislation decree the length of a feature itself." Motion Picture Herald's Martin Quigley, Johnny-one-note of the trade press, was plaintively sarcastic: "This industry is going to be fixed up fine," wrote he, "when all the experts get through -making it safe for babies, supplying adult education...
...merest phantom of a story. Hollywood's one and only William Clark Fields is sometimes funny but more often clumsy and silly as he struts about barking wise cracks and chewing his large cigar. At his best in a very unconventional game of golf, he provides the film with a few good moments; but when he is gone, there is little left. To be sure, here is a dramatized history of the waltz, which is new; but the songs by Dorothy Lamour, Shirley Ross, and Martha Raye, and various novelty bits follow conventional lines...
...theory that Mrs. O'Leary's cow kicked over an oil lantern, thus starting the fire, seems to be of dubious historical accuracy. Nevertheless, Twentieth Century-Fox is privileged to rewrite history in the interests of drama, and drama it surely is which the film provides once the fateful lantern is upset. Streets are mobbed with frantic people; flames roar through the tightly-packed slums, ignite a gas tower, stampede the stock yards, and drive the whole South side into the Chicago River...
...read as well as present-day sixth-graders. The professor thereupon set out to invent improved methods of teaching adults to read. Chief advance over the system of Dr. Stella Center at New York University's reading clinic (TIME, Dec. 6), was the use of a motion picture film that flashes successive phrases on a screen, to guide the eyes along a line of type. In 15 one-hour lessons Dr. Buswell increased the reading ability of his adults 15%, was highly pleased...
...Francisco Samuel Goldwyn, hard-working film producer, released a pithy Goldwynism: "I go to a movie every night. Why not? I've got to do something to take my mind off my business...