Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 9

DETROIT-JFREE PRESS Monday. Dec. 26. 1949 Hollywood's 'Gifts9 for 1949 Reviewed NOW! Star Gazing 'Little Hitler' Rises, Falls Like Humpty-Dumpty BY HELEN BOWER from beginning to end. The abject terror of Bobby Driscoll, the small boy who saw a murder committed but couldn't convince his elders of the truth of his report, was something to watch as the killers stalked him.

r.iH. UAHD-TO-GET KIDS A 6IDL 17110'S HARD TO BY HEDDA HOPPER HOLLYWOOD This Christmas I find some packages that I overlooked under my Christmas tree in fact, the public Christmas tree. They're Hollywood's gifts to the world in terms of pictures and performances. Costing millions to produce, we get them for a few pieces of silver. I'm not speaking of all Hollywood products.

We make plenty of bad or mediocre pictures, in fact so many that the good ones are lost in the shuffle. LET'S LOOK back over 1949 and see what we got: "Letter to Three Wives, released early in the year, was a rollicking comedy with fine performances. It gave us a new star, Paul Douglas. No glamour boy, he was a little beaten up, but so virile and likeable you Choice POLITICAL power's creeping corruption hits Americans right the eyes in "All the King's Men" at the United Artists Theater. It is terribly real to watch Willie Stark in the husky person of Broderick Crawford change from a small-town crusader against graft to a state governor who uses any form of evil as a weapon.

This is another movie showing what Hollywood can be capa-" ble of doing with raw and meaty material in straight-cut "slice UfHfe" drama. Its terrors and warnings come closer to home than any pulse-hopping gangster gun-roarer. Smooth as. greased lightning and as deadly when it strikes, the picture has profited in unity from direction by the man who 1 wrote its screenplay, Robert Rossen. It is based on Robert Penn couldn't help taking him and his performance to your heart.

Then there was "Champion, a film made for peanuts, but It was a good story, one of Bing Lardner's best. That picture gave us a new producer, Stanley Kramer, and a fine new director, Mark Robson. While we'd seen Kirk Douglas In other films, I believe that most never thought he had the star calibre he exhibited in that picture. Ruth Roman, who'd been knocking on producers doors for years, got her big break- in "Champion" also. So did Paul Stewart.

He'd previously had most smoking heels parts; but when he got a chance to play a nice guy, he romped home with the performance. "The Barkleys of Broadway" reunited Fred Astaire with Ginger Rogers. Perhaps they were not as good as in former days, but they were so much better, than any other Hollywood dance team that we can't complain. THEN THERE was "Come to the Stable," in which Celeste Holm, peeping out from a nun's costume, stole every scene she was in, except those she shared with Elsa Lanchester. Then Elsa not only held her own but shone through like the evening star.

"Roseanna an old yarn with a new face, introduced Joan Evans, who did a remarkably fine job in her first picture. She was supported by some of the finest actors of the screen. The performances of Raymond Mas-sey, Charlie Bickford and Richard Basehart stand out in my mind as among the best of the year. In "Edward, My Son," Deborah Kerr rose to new heights. Many think she should have the Oscar for her job.

But the picture didift get the acclaim it might have had not so many People's tm' I I fiWK JejftPWlPPBMM1PaWBaaaaiii I i I i irM y- Broderick Crawford and Mercedes McCambridge are top 'hits in "All the King's Men" at the United Artists Theater. Shubert Lafayette Greets 'Finian' Russ Brown, Harry Stockwell, Marilyn Day and Charles Davis will have leading roles in the musical comedy, "Finian's opening Monday evening for a week at the Shubert Lafayette Theater. KRIM WOODWARD ar. 6 Hilt ADM. 60 'Caja EXCLUSIVE DETROIT SHOWINGl NOW PlAVINGt RITA HAYWORTH In 2 of Her Greatest Hits! Dancing With Gene Kelly "COVER GIRL" Tathnlealar Dancing With Fred Astaire "you'VerI NEVER LOVELIER" uiricmi or remembered how wonderful Rob ert Morley in the stage play.

SPENCER TRACY never touched his performance in feeling or acting. The picture was memorable only because of Deborah Kerr. Jimmv Stewart will be in line 'for an academy nomination for "The Stratton Story," a picture as American as apple pie. That was one of the last pictures directed by that all American, Sam Wood. "They Lived By Night," made for little money, was a "sleeper." The British saw and praised it long before it was released here.

The young love of Cathy OTJonnell and Farley Granger set against a back- ground of brutality gave us something seldom seen on the screen. "The Window" was another "sleeper." It had great suspense A SAGA DF My -rut ci it ht rnx TTl THE BRIDE WORE MwA-o A W-rlp i -iHnnD iHiB i i if W1 With A 'Treat tm Kougn He's Never Used Eefore! BLAZIMBtfiilNSOH "RIDERS OF with TIM HOLT Pichard tfow I fix A 1ST WSSSXi mi TKZSSkA 'THE GOLDEN STALLION I WTDOM IM.8" rit Ut iYM rmtf flew NEW SEATS! WEW SEATS1 1 3SS3STS -CSSSTWTHE BIG OPB 12:15 JUCWW WTtCI ll. -IV (jOrmM Watt Dltaty'f AU WW jw IK? "ftSTIVAL OF HITS" I iAMtjr im TECHNICOLOR Mil MHINt -rrTT--'-' Door OM" 10:45 Ail. THE' VENGEANCE TRAIL! THE RANGE" Martin Jacqueline Whita NOW! Top Spot tar Movlt Etittrtalnimnt Optn AH Night Ntvtr Closeo' TO PROVE A MAN'S R3DCEKCE! AC a mm ssltu stli fctijsL yzj 8AXD0LP1 SCSTT GLEM FOBO CLAIEE TREYCR I EYam KEiIS'EBGAS BXHSSSS I DOWNTOWN THEATtI GENE FRANK KELLY-SINATRA Ann MILLER Batty GARRETT Isles KUNSO Vera-EUEN msu 'BLACK MIDNIGHT SCOUNDRELS nil TUTT 71 TlfVl frorfvetfl hf HENRY KING SOL C. SIEGEL DOORS OPEN 10:45 A.M.

iiic: mm (MUDJiiUSM? Merciless Study of a Man in Our Time, His Morals Mannsrs and Womsn Ike Ens's Men" by lofcertPenn Wnrerl h. mi tOBERT lOSSEH" BLUSHESI BMIie BURKE Warren Pulitzer jfnze Novel. Willie begins as a county office-! He is so honest his intention that he impresses Jack Burden (John Ireland), reporter sent from the state capital to get his story. Defeated, Willie studies law Jn his humble back-country home with the help 61 his schoolteacher wife, Lucy (Anne Seymour). The death of some children in a school accident propels him into another campaign.

Big-time politicians attempt to use him in a race for the governor's office. AT THIS point a young actress named Mercedes McCambridge literally comes into the picture as Sadie Burke, case-hardened political secretary, and walks off with every scene in which she appears. Direct without being tough, cynical without being heartless, Sadie knows the game she's in. It's her hard luck to fall for Humpty-Dumpty Willie. Willie's fall begins, when Sadie tells him he's a patsy.

He fights back first to "show" the political gang. He becomes governor and lavishly fulfills promises to the people in the way that Mussolini drained the Pontine marshes and Hitler built an autobahn network across Germany. DRUNK WITH sight of power, Willie grows recklessly, sure he can justify anything with the platitude that good comes out of evil. Through Burden, from a well-to-do family, Willie's evil smirches Anne Stanton (Joanne Dru), destroys her uncle, Judge Stanton (Raymond Greenleaf), and her brother Adam (Shep-perd Strudwick). Willie has already made a cripple of his adopted son Tom (John Derek) and a disillusioned woman of his wife.

In a last, blare of' rabble-rousing Willie squashes impeachment Droceedines against him. As he comes out te the people Willie is shot byAdam, whom Willie's Ibodytniarrfr Sugar Boy (Walter Burke); kills. CRAWFORD OUGHT to have Willie Stark. He charges like a bull and charms like a serpent. He is the egotist grown unmoral and blind to consequences.

3Iiss McCambridge is next in line for honors in an excellently-chosen cast. "All the King's Men" hag fast action and change of pace down its road to destruction. It's a picture for Americans to think of at any election time MAI ZETTERLINGt- The Gill ia the Painfasg ft. a. cm aeanaa actually fllaaa ta Cananj- CINEMA ViiST fCflT ANO FEJiOlhAWI iBERGMaif COTTEff.

UHSER GD. RIVER FREE Joseph Cotter vK CONTINUOUS 8:30 A.M. BR Until 3:00 A.M. SO MONKOt AVE. Tl THE9TBE mm tm First Detroit Showing mm AUNanms TOMIOL RUSSai HAYCEN CAROL THURSTON iuczt naoMt isWiWP' 55s 3JS I la.

M. at JhMBl a II tba Nn Amarfcaa SW fjfjt 5r i TO 7U ftfi COIOMIM PICTSXtS rmnit ROBERT ROSSEN'S PRODUCTION, Base upon the PuSlzn Prize Hevd Broderick CRAWFORD Joanne DRU-Win IRELAND -John DEREK Mercedes MtCAMSSIDCE imm 7 fill PA P. KIM Announcinq A NEW FEATURE POLICY OPEN A.M. nauquraPresenfafionimWlM Hilariously Wonderful "PASSPORTtoPIMLICO" British at their comic bestr-TIME WOODWARD at GRAND BLVD. FmrnsYHmsMuim fMtwt i ft i.

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