The New Pictures

The Black Cat (Universal), "suggested" by Edgar Allan Poe's famed story of a murderer's retribution, takes place in a sleek modernistic house built by a demented Austrian (Boris Karloff) on the remains of a World War fortress. A bus accident one stormy night sends into this evil abode a U. S. detective story writer, his bride, and a jittery psychiatrist (Bela Lugosi) who suspects that years ago Karloff stole his wife and daughter. Lugosi's suspicions are confirmed when Karloff shows him his waxy-looking spouse among a collection of prettily embalmed women in the cellar. In an attempt to kill Karloff, lugubrious Lugosi is scared off by the appearance of a black cat. Next day the uneasy U. S. visitors try to escape but are thwarted by Karloff who has his chilly eye on the bride (Jacqueline Wells), for a Black Mass that evening. Karloff agrees to stake the girl's freedom on a chess game with Lugosi. Karloff wins.

Before the Black Mass, all the characters have talked of horror more than they have experienced it. But with that grisly bout of Satanism they swing into action, shrieking, shooting, skulking, fainting, sprinting, cursing and puffing. Lugosi's daughter (Lucille Lund) inexplicably appears on the embalming table in the cellar. Lugosi and Karloff grapple over the table, are separated by a servant. Lugosi commences skinning Karloff alive with a scalpel. The U. S. visitors escape the house. Dynamite blows the whole situation to bits.

A dismal hocus-pocus which seems to confuse its actors as much as it fails to frighten its audience. The Black Cat is the work of Director Edgar Ulmer. Silly shot: the Black Mass, with Karloff intoning Latin gibberish.

Cinema's two outstanding blood-curdlers deserve a better vehicle than The Black Cat in which to appear together for the first time. Between them they have played all of the more awful whatnots and macabre personages of the past few years, Karloff in The Mummy, Frankenstein, The Mask of Fu Manchu, The Old Dark House and The Ghoul; Lugosi in Dracula, White Zombie, Chandu the Magician and Murders in the Rue Morgue.

Boris Karloff, an Englishman born Charles Edward Pratt 47 years ago, is fond of pipes, tweeds, tea, cricket and golf. Member of a civil service family, he gave up studying for a consular post to go to Canada as an actor. It took him 14 years acting bit parts to get a full-size role in Hollywood.

Bela Lugosi was born in Lugos, Hungary, 46 years ago, son of a banker. At 20 he made his debut in Budapest as Romeo, was for ten years a matinee idol. Because of political troubles he left Hungary in 1921, went to Manhattan where he produced, directed and acted in his native tongue. His first English part, in The Red Poppy in 1925, he learned by rote without knowing what the words meant.

Little Miss Marker (Paramount). A famed children's surgeon (Frank Conroy) is snatched away from his wedding, in tails and white tie, hustled to his hospital by a pair of bravoes. A blustering turfman (Charles Bickford) is foiled in attempting murder, pressed into service as a blood donor. A misanthropic bookmaker (Adolph Menjou) addresses prayers to a God who seems to be hovering just above the Manhattan skyline. All this takes place while a pretty little four-year-old girl (Shirley Temple) lies near death on an operating table. Shrewdly contrived to bring lumps to the throats of any audience, this picture puts an exclamation point to a story by Damon Runyon which is otherwise bright, hard, amusing.

Little Miss Marker is so named because Bookmaker Menjou inherits her when her father commits suicide after having left her as pledge to make good an I. O. U. ("marker"). Surrounded by turf and night-club characters with such names as "Sorrowful," "Grinder," "Regret," "Bangles" and "Bennie the Gouge," the child becomes addicted to cynicism and coarse language. She prefers hearing Menjou read the Daily Racing Form to stories of King Arthur. But "Marky" brings out the best that is in a night club singer (Dorothy Dell) and in Menjou, who has been so morose and atrabilious that he disliked even himself. Risking the displeasure of Bickford, with whom they have plotted to dope a race horse, Menjou anc Dell become honest and affectionate. It is their attempt to reclaim "Marky" by means of a party in Arthurian costume that causes her hospitalization. They put her on a horse which shies, throws her.

When Shirley Temple appeared in Stand Up and Cheer (TIME, April 30) Fox Films had her put her X on a long-term contract and publicized her as a find. This was misleading, since she is a seasoned actress who outgrew her diapers in Educational Pictures' Baby Burlesks and later appeared in a more advanced series called Frolics of Youth. Still subject to occasional use by Educational, Shirley Temple was borrowed by Paramount for two pictures. In her full-length role in Little Miss Marker she is adroitly modest and straightforward. Sadie McKee (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) is a tortuous Cinderella fable which starts Joan Crawford as a maid in a sumptuous household. Her mother, the cook, hopes she will marry the young man (Franchot Tone) of the house. That seems not improbable when the picture ends with Franchot Tone amorously regarding Miss Crawford while he puffs out the candles on his birthday cake.

Before the candle-puffing, however, two other men (Gene Raymond and Edward Arnold) have crossed the Crawford path and left their footprints behind. Vivid, preposterous, well-acted, Sadie McKee is unlikely to halt the dependable Miss Crawford's run of popular successes.

Stingarce (RKO-Radio) is an Australian bandit (Richard Dix) of the 1870's, named after a barb-tailed fish difficult to catch. A whimsical rogue who gallops about on a white charger, he kidnaps a composer (Conway Tearle), later an orphan named Hilda Bouverie (Irene Dunne) who falls in love with him. The bandit arranges for the composer to hear the girl sing, goes to jail while she prepares to become a great diva. Stately Miss Dunne succeeds as convincingly as do most cinematic songsters, but inevitably she is drawn back to Australia.

Based on stories by E. W. Hornung (Raffles), Stingaree is well-photographed, contains some florid acting by Mary Boland as a fluttery provincial lady, would be routine operetta if it contained more songs.

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