Quotes

[reviewing 'Show Boat' (1936)]: Universal's excellent screen transcription, preserving the Jerome Kern score and accepting Oscar Hammerstein's book and lyrics, is the pleasantest kind of proof that it was not merely one of the best musical shows of the century but that it contained the gossamer stuff for one of the finest musical films we have seen.

[from his review of Show Boat (1936)] Universal's excellent screen transcription, preserving the Jerome Kern score and accepting Oscar Hammerstein II's book and lyrics, is the pleasantest kind of proof that it was not merely one of the best musical shows of the century but that it contained the gossamer stuff for one of the finest musical films we have seen.

[from his review of The Wizard of Oz (1939)] "The Wizard of Oz" t is all so well-intentioned, so genial and so gay that any reviewer who would look down his nose at the fun-making should be spanked and sent off, supperless, to bed.