Cinema: The New Pictures: Jul. 20, 1931

A Woman of Experience (RKO-Pathé). Formula for spy stories: a shady lady enters government service in war time and is assigned to make friends with an enemy spy. She also falls in love with an aristocratic naval officer. The crisis comes when she saves the life of the naval officer, by outwitting the enemy spy. Few spy stories vary this formula greatly. A 'Woman of Experience varies it not at all. Spy stories are currently favored by producers as a measuring stick for actresses who seem capable of being built up into a resemblance to Greta Garbo (Mysterious Lady). Helen Twelvetrees is charming, low-voiced, auburn-haired, but she lacks the exotic numbness of Garbo, Marlene Dietrich et al. Her quiet and intelli gent acting leaves the melodrama plausible but not exciting.

The Secret Call (Paramount) is mainly notable because its leading lady, Peggy Shannon, is being publicized as the successor to itty Clara Bow, whom she replaced in this picture when Actress Bow became "indisposed."

Stuart Walker, able technician of Indianapolis and Cincinnati stock companies, has handled the story well but shows his unfamiliarity with the cinema by not moving his camera around enough. Actress Shannon photographs prettily. Less provocative than Clara Bow, she shows more signs of histrionic intelligence. The story, borrowed from a 20-year-old play, is still ip to date in outline but its motivations re rusty, its crucial moments creak a little.

It concerns a girl whose father has committed suicide after receiving shabby treatment from a political boss. As a hotel telephone operator, she comes by the information which makes possible her revenge. Revenge is seldom sufficient for the plot of a cinema; the girl also loves the son of the man who caused her father's death and will, presumably, marry him. Five and Ten (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) relates the horrid circumstances which may mar the financial success of a 5¢ & 10¢ store tycoon. Happy in Kansas City the tycoon and his dependents fall on miserable days when they move to a magnificent home in Manhattan. The tycoon's wife allows herself to be cajoled by a mustachioed gigolo. The son of the family becomes a whiskey-sot. The daughter, painfully snubbed by socialites, falls in love with one who does not snub her (Leslie Howard). A denouement of sorts arrives when the son, overcome by alcoholic despair, commits suicide in an airplane. The tycoon then begins to look after his wife. The daughter, it seems, will get the man she wants although by this time he has married another girl.

The blatant plot of Five and Ten, conceived and executed as a magazine novel by Author Fannie Hurst, permits Marion Davies, hitherto an adroit though kittenish comedienne, to attempt an emotional role. Although Hearst papers, as is customary, hailed her efforts loudly, her defi ciencies were made more than usually apparent by juxtaposition with the work of smooth, skilful Leslie Howard. The 5¢ & 10¢ store tycoon, chief character in the book but not the cinema, is able Richard Bennett, father of Cinemactresses Joan and Constance and Cabaret Dancer Barbara Bennett.