Something new has been added, or will be officially on October 23, to first-rate screen entertainment. It's this new RKO Radio series, produced by Fredric Ullman, Jr., and, judging from the inaugural production, it will become a standout favorite with the public, and a financial and professional joy to exhibitors of every type of stand from the biggest pic palaces to the small outlets of the nation's hamlets. Ullman has selected as his potent ice-breaker a stirring account of a soldier-in-the-making, "Private Smith of the U. S. A." Depicted is a typical draftee, employed by a rural gas station. He is shown heading for an induction center, carrying with him all the reactions common to America's manhood upon leaving civilian life and facing the biggest job in our history, - personally defending in uniform the structure of democracy. The camera follows him through the various stages of training, and at the finale you see him and his fellow soldiers equipped and ready for action. Standout in the production are its superb direction by that ace of the documentary film, Slavko Vorkapich, and the narration, exquisitely penned by Phil Reisman, Jr., who has given power and stirring human interest to every line. Vorkapich has used great skill and imagination in the sequences, thereby stirring one's emotions and getting away from any suggestion of the dry and the drab which are so apt to outcrop in factual films. The result is a memorable two-reeler, as broad in scope as the 48 States, and as warm as an American fireside. Ullman's other co-workers, Jay Bonafield, who supervised it; Larry O'Reilly, its cinematographer; Narrator Dwight Weist; Editor John Hoffman; Nathaniel Shilkret and Herman Fuchs, who furnished the musical accompaniment; and Recorder Francis L. Woolley can be immensely proud of their efforts, too. "This Is America" is earmarked for fame. Its gilt-edge stuff.
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