Word: version
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...routine hazards of adapting a literary classic for the screen are increased in this case by the fact that an earlier adaptation in which Douglas Fairbanks performed in 1921 was a screen classic in its own right. That any subsequent version of the Dumas work would seem tame by comparison was almost inevitable. Consequently, it is to the credit of Author Dumas, Screenwriter Dudley Nichols, Director Rowland V. Lee and a cast of capable sword & cloak actors that this one is still a handsome, charming, and vivacious costume melodrama which, if something less than a cinema milestone, is still better...
...current version, infinitely more sophisticated, is chiefly noteworthy as an example of directorial tact. Aware that much of the motivation in Way Down East is of the sort which contemporary cinemaddicts have been taught to consider comic, Henry King must frequently have been tempted to burlesque the story rather than risk having audiences discover their own laughs in its sentimental climaxes. Instead, with the aid of a sympathetic script, by Howard Estabrook and William Hurlbut. he gave it a straight-forward treatment, emphasized the backgrounds rather than the plot. The result is that Way Down East has a disarming charm...
...toes of Eleanor Powell and the powerful dusky notes of Ethel Waters. "Jubilee," another Boston opener, is on the grand scale with a nicely turned bit of satire and Mary Boland leading a well rounded cast. "Porgy and Bess," with George Gershwin's excellent score is a modern operatic version of Heyward's striking negro story and a good thing for the more serious. Earl Carroll's "Sketch Book" appeals in Carroll fashion to the more elemental instincts...
...more picturesque names of the suits are Ghulam, Slave; Chang, Harp; and Burart, Royal Diploma. The name of the pack is Gunja-Kha, which means "Relieving Scalp." They were invented to keep the hands of the king busy so that he would not scratch his head, or, as another version of the tale has it, so that he would not pull hairs out of his beard...
...Lifetime, as he impersonates Flute, the bellows-mender; and the over-energetic jabberings of James Cagncy as Bottom, the weaver, effectively combine to detract from the real merits of the production. Omitting much of the superb poetry which is the play's chief virtue, the screen version still contrives to run too long (2½ hr.). Nonetheless, by grace of Hal Mohr's magnificent photography, which makes the backgrounds far more effective than any stage set could ever be. plus Composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold's brilliant arrangement of the Mendelssohn score, and the indestructibly entrancing spirit...