The Film World

Radio Record, Volume IX, Issue 13, 4 October 1935, Page 23

The Film World

1935s BEST AcTING PERFORMANCES

McLaglen Tops the List: Laughton’s "Ruggles" ) ALTHOUGH the calendar gives October as the tenth month of the year, it is actually the end of the picture producers’ year. Contracts are now being signed for the 1936 product,

and the first. of these films will be shown in New Zealand theatres any day now. American’ phpers are busy picking the best acting performances of 1985-andq top places in "Liberty," the American weekly, are given to three Kuropean stars, Victor McLaglen. Hlisabeth Bergner and Charles Laughton. In a recent review of "The Informer" on this page, I said: Victor MeLaglen is the informer-half-child, brutal and loving in turn, a madman, a drunkard, a2 coward; all these he portrays with the sincerity of a great actor. It is the best thing McLaglen’s -ever done. } "Liberty" says: First of all, there is Victor McLaglen’s Gyppo Nolan in "The Informer." Not only is this the finest bit of acting to come from the screen this year, but quite likely the cleanest, surest characterisation yet drawn for the talkies. Then there is Freddie. Washington, who played Louise Beavers’s daughter in "Imitation of Life.’ Her role, that of a cultured Negress, was of a type \that "popular" stories have dodged as too dangerous for mass consumption. But Miss Washington, with Uttle apparent effort, etched all the tragedy and futility of the educated Negro.

Freddie Bartholomew was perfect as the young David Copperfield; and another Englishman, Charles Laughton, did a délightful caricature of the making of an American in "Ruggles of Red Gap." In the film "scape Me Never," Elisabeth Bergner gives a performance that for sheer technical dex-. terity is too fine to be missed. And, of course, any list should include Pau! Muni’s muddled miner in the turbulent "Black Fury."