Cinema: The New Pictures, Nov. 4, 1957

The Tin Star (Perlberg-Seaton; Paramount) is presented as a very special breed of horse opera—something the publicists call a "people western." What the moviemakers are trying to say is that the stagecoach trade should hang onto its ten-gallon hats because the characters portrayed are actually intended to resemble real human beings. They don't. Oats is oats, and the only distinctive thing about this bin of them is that they happen to be of a right good grade.

Henry Fonda is an aging ex-sheriff, disillusioned with the lawman's life. Tony Perkins is a nice young Sunday-go-to-meetin' sort of feller who has just been chosen sheriff, and who discovers to his horror that there is more to the job than wearing a tin star. The story develops as the oldtimer, much against his will, is drawn by sympathy into an attempt to teach the young comer how to be a proper lawman—before he becomes a dead one.

The job is not easy. The kid can twirl his six guns like a vaudeville juggler, but when it comes to shooting, he could hardly hit Texas if he were standing in Fort Worth. Worse yet, he has not learned that the best way to handle a fight is generally to duck it.

The two principals play together beautifully, both in harmony with the unreal conventions of the Hollywood western. For Fonda it is a small thing done with distinction; for Perkins the part will probably represent another big forward bound in his rush up the stairway to stardom.

The Story of Esther Costello (Romulus; Columbia) examines the phony charity racket. Following the lead of Nicholas Monsarrat's novel, on which it is based, the picture not only condemns the conscious criminals but also takes a number of lusty sideswipes at their unconscious accomplices: public sentimentality and crassness, official indifference, and the self-righteous complaisance of religious groups.

The Story begins when Esther Costello, an eight-year-old Irish girl, finds a cache of grenades in a ruined farmhouse and accidentally detonates them, killing her mother. The explosion does the girl no actual physical harm, but the shock leaves her deaf, dumb and blind. Five years later, an American woman (Joan Crawford) with plenty of money and nothing to do—she has recently walked out on her unfaithful husband (Rossano Brazzi) —takes the child (Heather Sears) on maternal impulse, and with the help of some therapists teaches her to hear, speak and see with her hands.

From there on, the film becomes a rather weird combination of the lives of Helen Keller and Trilby. Esther turns out to be a lovely and precocious girl, and when the newspapers get the story of her amazing development, her guardian is knocked off her feet by a mailbag full of invitations to speak before civic and religious organizations. She accepts a few of them, and before long she and Esther are major personalities on the lecture circuit. It is only a step from there to raising funds for other handicapped children, and before long Guardian Crawford finds herself on the verge of becoming a big business.