Best Plays

These are the plays which in the light of metropolitan criticism seem most important:

SWEET NELL or OLD DRURY; -Laurette Taylor enjoying herself in a very old-fashioned melodrama-romance in which ladies wear yard-wide hats and gentlemen lace pants. A clean show about Charles II.

SEVENTH HEAVEN -The Bowery of Paris reflected in the mirror of Romance, where a " very remarkable fella" (George Gaul) wins a "yellow haired wife" (Helen Menken). A new actor, the World War, takes the same old thrilling part that the Civil War played in the melodramas of 20 years ago.

RAIN-The winds of religion blow over the mountains of psychoanalysis, while Jeanne Eagels, as an engaging harlot, battles with a rabid missionary. Rain, rain, South Sea RAIN beats down on one and all.

ICEBOUND-A picture combining New England character at its worst, womanly character at its best, a prodigal son at his prodigalest.

POLLY PREFERRED-Genevieve Tobin, a Cinderella of the movies, meets a go-getter godfather, who clothes her in splendor and wins her the right to tread the sacred soil of Hollywood in the slipper of fortune.

ZANDER THE GREAT-Alice Brady attracts much critical encomium in an amusing if conventional comedy concerning bootleggers and an innocent child whose naivete reforms them.

AREN'T WE ALL -Smart, sophisticated, sparkling English comedy, giving Cyril Maude every opportunity to score as a delightful old reprobate lord who sought his amourettes in the depths of the British Museum.

YOU AND I-The humorous and pathetic struggle between utility and art, first visited upon a father, is again visited upon his son. A play polished with good acting and garnished by all the devices of the Harvard Workshop.

THE DEVIL'S DISCIPLE-A brilliant last act and Roland Young, as the cynical and disillusioned "Gentlemanly Johnny Burgoyne," give Bernard Shaw another success with one of his early plays.

MERTON OP THE MOVIES-Glenn Hunter and Florence Nash, tenderfoot and a sourdough of Hollywood, soften many a dour face with a satire on "the art of motion pictures."