THE PERILS OF PAULINE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 18, Issue 446, 9 January 1948, Page 10

THE PERILS OF PAULINE

(Paramount)

Y only recollection of the original Pearl White, ei whose life and hard times this picture chronicles, is of one fadeout which left her hanging head-down, in the process of being kippered over a slow and smoky fire. I didn’t see the next thrilling episode — my film-going was more intermittent around about 1920 than it is now-but it did not take a Nosttadamus to pfedict the formalised pattern of hair-rais-ing adventure and last-minute escape which characterised the original Perils of Pauline. The 1947 version is by no means so predictable from reel to reel-and nowhere quite so exciting. There is a good deal of noise, and a lot»mére senitimental syrup than my palate could stand, but the film has its bright moments. These would be sufficiently nufherous to keep the whole show on a passably high entertainment level if they were evenly spread, but béing concentrated more in the earlier sequences, the story bogs down rather badly about twothirds of the way through afid this time there is no last-minute miracle to ward off the sticky end. So ‘long as the picture is telling the stoty of the original Perils and how they wete filmed it is good fun, This, you feel, is How Things Began-these recofistructioris of the old screen sets, where half-a-dozen different shows were filmed simultaneously, cheek by jowl, in afi atmosphere thick with custard-pies, six-giin smoke, and the invective of leather-lunged and megaphoned directors, are both believable and enjoyable. And there are just enough scenes in the original Pauline tradition to make one wish there wefe more. But when the story leaves the not-so-silent studios of the silent era it seems (paradoxical as this may sound) to lose reality. This probably stems — as the Americans themselves would say-from two causes. The first of these is the personality of Betty Hutton who, to my mind at least, both looks and sounds utimistakably of this day and age. However hazy may be my mental picture of Pearl White, Betty Hutton coincides with it only when she is handling one of those old-time Westeth revolvers (the only weapon I’ve éver come across in which the é¢yélic and effective rates of fire coincided), or lies tied to the tracks as the express thunders round the bend. As s60f as she opens her mouwth, or cuts a Caper, time marches of and takes twenty yeats in its stride. The second cause is the apparent determination of the producer to exploit Miss Hutton’s talent for raucous comedy ard overripesentimentality, rather than tell a credible story. "John Lund, as the stage actor who supplies the sentimental interest in the story, is not much of an advertisement for the legitimate stage (this may be subtle Hollywood propaganda), but William Demaftest, as an old-tithe director, delighted me, "Billy de Wolfe is good for a chuckle whenever he appears, and in the earlier scenes Constance Collier, as an elderly stock actress, gets

caught up in some broad farce, In the closing stages of the picture, the sentiment is as technicoloured as the film and the final scenes are both physiologically and psychologically absurd, but what goes before is, on the whole, ited good fun,

BAROMETER Fair, but becoming overcast: "The Perils of Pauline." Cloudy: "The Long Night."