New Yorker on Movies

In addition to a comprehensive listing of movies playing in Manhattan theaters that week, “Goings On About Town” highlighted a selection of films with capsule reviews from critic John McCarten. In the reviewer’s opinion:

  • “The Green Years,” at Radio City Music Hall, was “overly detailed” but redeemed by “some first-class acting.”

  • “The Harvey Girls,” playing wide, was a “foolish story” made “bearable by some good tunes and agile dancing by Ray Bolger.”

  • “It Happened at the Inn,” ("Goupi Mains Rouges") a French film at the 55th Street Playhouse had a wide variety of characters all of whom were “worth your fond attention.”

  • Danny Kaye was “very funny” in “The Kid From Brooklyn” at the Astor.

  • “My Name Is Julia Ross” provided some “pretty good, grim entertainment” at the Normandie and Carlton.

  • “Open City,” the first Italian film since Mussolini's fall, was a "superlative piece of work" at the World.

  • Celebrated French actress Francoise Rosay "gives a demonstration of her versatility" in "Portrait of a Woman" ("Une Femme Disparait") at the Little Carnegie.

  • Gary Cooper "seems at home as the cowboy” in “Saratoga Trunk” at the Hollywood but Ingrid Bergman “is sometimes justifiably uneasy as the tempestuous heroine."

  • "The Spiral Staircase" at the Art and 77th Street had an eerie atmosphere and a fine cast.

  • The "irony is old hat" in "Three Strangers," playing wide, but the cast was worth watching.

  • "Ziegfield Follies of 1946" "at the Capitol was “very rich, very colorful, very spectacular and not a little boring."

In his full review that week of "The Kid From Brooklyn" in his regular feature “Current Cinema,” McCarten wrote that Kaye was "rapidly reaching that happy point where he can do no wrong," although he found the character’s transition from simple-minded milkman into a sophisticated boulevardier who bursts into a rapid-fire nightclub ditty about the ballet, jarring. In his full review of “Portrait of a Woman,” he praised the film’s “good, solid realism” but found the film “none too briskly paced.” Disney’s “Make Mine Music!” was dismissed as an uneven musical mélange. He deemed the Joan Fontaine vehicle “From This Day Forward” oppressive in its attempt to “portray brownstone life” by which he meant the lives of the working poor not of the doctors and hedge fund managers who occupy brownstones today. The remake of “The Virginian,” starring Joel McCrea "doesn't add up to much." McCarten noted that the release of the short film “Hymn of the Nations,” starring conductor Arturo Toscanini in his film debut, intended to celebrate the liberation of Italy, had been delayed but “it was worth waiting for." See the pages on movies for other critical reactions as well as for information on other films playing around town that week