Now for what's playing in Milwaukee this week. Held over for a second week is Warner Bros.'s second blockbuster musical this year.
Gold Diggers prevailed over Paramount's International House at the local box office last week. This week, Paramount throws another Pre-Code haymaker at the champ.
One of the year's most controversial pictures, Temple Drake was an adaptation of William Faulkner's scandalous best-seller Sanctuary -- read it and you'll never think of corn cobs the same way again. You won't see the Faulkner connection made in the advertising, but people presumably knew who Temple Drake was.
The Sentinel's movie review gives Faulkner and the film credit where due:
And here's my own review. Compared to this and Gold Diggers, everything else is likely to pale, but for those looking for summer movie thrills, the Garden offers the bombing of New York City.
I like the double-billing of Men Must Fight and an actual fight film. Baer and Schmeling should have satisfied audiences who might have expected more fighting from the main attraction. I try to explain what they actually got here. Hint: the woman of 1940 is pissed.
Here are the also-rans.
So who is Henry Garat? The answer is: a French actor who won international recognition for the art-house hit The Congress Dances. Fox Film must have hoped he would prove another Maurice Chevalier, but William Dieterle's Adorable would be his only American film. Throwing some sort of Ruritanian whimsy into theaters at the moment when Busby Berkeley and his gold diggers were running amok probably sealed Garat's fate in Hollywood.
No comments:
Post a Comment