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The Moviegoer

The Beauty of the Coloring Almost Makes "The Garden of Allah" a Five Star Movie; Plot Is Weak

As a reproduced on Arizona sands, the Garden of Allah is very pretty to look at, but hardly entertaining in itself after an hour or so. As so many directors before him, producer Selznick has relied on a panorama of Morrocco and its outlying districts to sustain an old story that had no business being converted into a movie in the first place. But to condemn the picture's direction and plot is not an deprecate either the acting of its stars or the Impressive Technicolor in which it is filmed. Marlene Dietrich as a rich adventuress and Charles Boyer as a renegade monk give performances that one can appreciate without an adequate story, and the picture's coloring guarantee it the box-office success it would not receive had it been produced in the customary black and white. Technicolor is both the strength and weakness of the "Garden of Allah". It is responsible for making the plot of series of sequences which attempt to prove what a wonderful thing movie coloring will someday be, and responsible also for the undeniable beauty of the picture as a whole.

"Adventures in Manhattan" will please individuals who enjoy predicting the climax of a mystery thriller when the story is only partially unfolded. As a movie which in parts is both uncommonly good and uncommonly bad, it contains enough comedy sequences, to sustain a plot which is highly improbable at best. The new edition of the March of Time suspends the propaganda and presents an interesting portrayal of the Mormen Church and the modern doctors' fight against cancer.

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