The New Pictures

The Arizona Kid (Fox). To Warner Baxter and Fox Films went the first prize of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences for In Old Arizona (TIME, April 21). This sequel is written around the same character from O. Henry's story and acted by the same Baxter. It is one more piece of evidence that the "western," already an eminently successful cinematic formula, has in one way been energized and in another way sterilized by the sound device. Frontier atmosphere, crystallized in words and incidental noises, and the opportunity offered to expert modern photographers by frontier hillscapes have proved important at the box office. On the other hand, the speed of the old western, that unstoppable rush of visual images which would have been a highly exciting thing even without any story at all, is gone. Its absence was never proved more definitely than by The Arizona Kid. For this is no sophisticated echo of an old form, but the great, universal "western" itself, the one about the benign Mexican badman -- living in disguise and loved by his friends and the village girls-- who is really the desperate Arizona Kid, and who is discovered and chased in the last reel and gets away with his sweetheart down the canyon side. Instead of rushing, it is lethargic, ornate; when no dialog or songs are possible in the script, members of the cast, apparently a cabal to slow up the action at any cost, talk or sing to themselves or to their horses, guns, donkeys, reflections in mirrors. Best shot: a high-springed, six-horse stage coach, loaded with mail pouches, coming down a mountain road.

Warner Baxter's preparation for his present role as a range-rider involved two years as juvenile lead with the North Brothers Stock Company of Dallas, Tex., and seven years on the road for Oliver Morosco. Since he was born in Columbus, Ohio, and began to show ability for theatricals when he was ten, his friends have never been able to tell where he learned to ride. He is a clever horseman; his favorite diversions are trapping and hunting. During a period when he gave up show business because of his mother's opposition, he sold first farm machinery, then insurance, went broke running a garage. Now he has a chauffeur, a cabin in the San Jacinto Mountains, can make up like Douglas Fairbanks. He dresses foppishly, is fussy about his household arrangements, prefers maids to men servants. Some of his other pictures were A Tailor Made Man, Behind That Curtain, Romance of the Rio Grande.

The Texan (Paramount). This is another western, more elaborate than The Arizona Kid and less legitimate, with a mother-love angle and Gary Cooper as the bandit who conceals his identity. Like Warner Baxter he is an 0. Henry character--"A Double-Dyed Deceiver" has been retouched by Oliver .H. P. Garrett--but he is no Arizona Kid. Background is an element which must be weighed carefully in appraising the characters of disguised bandits called Kid. Gary Cooper is the Llano Kid. He is about to cheat an old South American woman out of all her worldly goods when his better nature awakens. Most tiresome shot: Gary Cooper's profile.

Ladies Love Brutes (Paramount). Although cast in the formula common to all recent pictures starring George Bancroft, the spectacle of a strong man fighting great odds alone is presented here so jerkily and melodramatically that the job of making it seem real is more than Bancroft can handle. There are times when, as an Italian contractor trying to get into society, he is fairly funny, but his machinations to win the love of a lady of the upper classes are absurd. The ending--in which he goes without his reward--will disappoint fans waiting for an amatory fadeout. Best shot: Bancroft tying a dinner tie.

Bride of the Regiment (First National). Somehow music and light, gracious playing gave that stilted musical comedy, The Lady in Ermine, a charm as a stage production which it has lost in cinema. Better direction might have made acceptable the earnest efforts of the large and mediocre cast. But Director John Francis Dillon paid little attention to dialog and treated the central situation--a lady who, captured by an invading army, is asked to pay a painful price to save her husband's life--with inexcusable pomposity. Typical shot: the villainous Austrian colonel overcome by wine at a critical moment.

The Burning Heart (Terra). This sound-picture, made in Germany, contains such noises as singing and automobile horns but no talking. It deals with a young composer who falls in love with a girl who tells him she works in a post-office but is really a cabaret singer. Ludwig Berger, who directed The Vagabond King, made this one on one of his trips abroad. Mady Christians, a handsome young woman, good at love-scenes, has the female lead.

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