Word: jolsonized
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...University Theatre presents two very worth while pictures this week: Nancy Carroll and John Boles in "Child of Manhattan," and "Hallelujah, I'm a Bum" with Al Jolson and Madge Evans. The first of these pictures is a witty, sophisticated story of life in the big city and points west. The lines in it are good with occasional touches of double meaning. The plot, while a trifle emotional, is not at all dripping; in fact in some touching scenes, where usual University audiences would laugh, there were moist eyes...
Hallelujah, I'm a Bum (United Artists -Joseph Schenck) was written by Ben Hecht, adapted by Samuel Behrman. scored by Richard Rodgers & Lorenz Hart. directed by Lewis Milestone and acted by, among others, Al Jolson...
...story is a frantic little fantasy about a collection of ne'er-do-wells who lead trampish lives in the shrubbery of Manhattan's Central Park; and particularly about their captain (Jolson) who knows the Mayor (Frank Morgan). Jolson finds a purse belonging to the Mayor's girl (Madge Evans), finds the girl herself when she has a stroke of amnesia, and restores her to her friend after falling in love with her himself...
...score, loaded with "rhythmic dialog" which was billed as a Rodgers-Hart invention, turns out to mean merely a superfluity of rhymes. Lewis Milestone's direction is graceful but undistinguished. Al Jolson's performance is notable for a great air of confidence, which is generally unjustified, and for the fact that he still wobbles his lower lip as though every other word in all his songs was Mammy...
Most attractive ingredient in Forty-Second Street is just what you might not expect-Ruby Keeler (Mrs. Al Jolson), who failed to make a Broadway success in her own right because her voice was too small and who was persuaded to make her cinema début in this picture because she has pretty legs and can tap dance. Ruby Keeler's utter inability to act is far more appropriate to her rôle than any feigned incompetence could possibly be. It gives Forty-Second Street a charm which the efforts of the rest of the cast-George...