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Edward Dmytryk and Irving Reis' Hitler's Children is a bizarre B propaganda film that RKO released during the early days of America's active participation in World War 2. Tim Holt is convincing as a Hitler Youth recruit who falls for anti-Nazi, Bonita Granville. Otto Kruger, Hans Conreid, and HB Warner lend able support and the scrip has a few good moments. However, RKO really skimped on the sets and whoever directed the fight scenes fumbled badly. Ms. Granville's appeal escapes me.
Jake Szymanski's Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates is as brain dead as its title implies, but, thanks to its talented cast, provides some chortles. Anna Kendrick, Adam Devine, Aubrey Plaza and the increasingly animated Zac Efron are game for the hijinks in this Wedding Crashers rip-off. If your expectations are low, you will be rewarded with mild hilarity. Szymanski's direction shows very little visual dexterity, favoring medium shots that do allow his players to milk whatever laughs they can get out of yet another script highlighting the arrested development of our twenty somethings.
Gil Junger's 10 Things I Hate About You is an undistinguished teen comedy based on The Taming of the Shrew. Heath Ledger and Julia Stiles sparkle as the leads, but the direction and script wouldn't pass muster for a Disney Channel movie.
Charlie Chaplin's A Dog's Life is thirty three minutes of joy and delight. It is 1918 and Chaplin's powers as a filmmaker are in full fruition. He can conjure Dickensian slums with a simple set and a mutt. A homeless tramp, substance abusers galore, cops, it sounds like winter in Portland, 2016. The shadow of Chaplin's vaudeville days hangs over the music hall sequences in this film as it would over his entire career. A masterpiece.
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