The New Pictures

Inspiration (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer). The decadent, artificial perfume which, springing from La Dame Aux Camelias, saturated with its nostalgia the boudoir literature of four decades, is revived strongly for Greta Garbo's third talking picture. She is a studio model, mistress of many men, who falls in love with a colorless young socialite. Robert Montgomery leaves her when he finds out about her bygone irregularities, but after a break he takes her back again. When his family decides that it is time for him to marry, Garbo goes away. The way this tale is told is as old as the material, but it becomes a superb illustration of Garbo's ability. When she is in front of the camera she creates a convincing, unforgettable atmosphere of the exotic with her gestures, her small, sad face, the deep tones of her voice. She brings to life the conventional scenes, so stiffly and even stodgily written. Robert Montgomery and Marjorie Rambeau seem indifferent in their roles, their competence too heavily overshadowed by Garbo's brilliance. Best sequence: Garbo reunited with her lover when he finds her penniless in a little cafe.

By Rocket to the Moon (UFA). Originally called The Girl in the Moon, this was made in Germany under the direction of Hermann Oberth, German rocket experimenter. In the belly of the gigantic rocket, tearing at 24,000 m.p.h. toward the dark face of the moon which no human being has ever seen, strapped down and writhing with the terrific pressure among fantastic instruments of control, is shown a nice old-fashioned love triangle consisting of two scientists and the girl for whose favor they are rivals. There is also one of the backers of the flight and the inventor of the rocket, an old professor who takes along his faithful companion, a caged mouse. Among the haggard caverns of the moon the backer of the party goes crazy and has to be shot. The professor discovers gold and is lost in a crevasse. The lovers stay behind to die on the wastes where nothing has ever died or been born before. Director Fritz Lang and his scientific colleagues have made a vigorous Vernesque fantasy and used every resource of the camera in photographing it. Good scenes: the pock-marked moon-face swimming up, nearer and nearer out of space; the point 220,000 mi. from the earth where the gravity of earth and moon cancel each other and the people in the rocket cabin have to use arm and foot straps to keep from floating around.

Girls Demand Excitement (Fox). This is a juvenile Lysistrata played against a collegiate backdrop in dialog disinfected for young ears. The original framework of Aristophanes' comedy is kept to the extent that the girl students will not "pet" unless the male students stop depriving them of their communal rights. The big scene comes in the basketball game when the girls use flirtatious methods of managing a victory. Girls Demand Excitement is made bearable at times by the good looks of a youthful cast. Best part: Virginia Cherrill (heroine of City Lights) as the girl who eliminates the leading male woman-hater.

Millie (R.K.O.). Donald Henderson Clarke's novel about a woman who is continually disillusioned in her love affairs is valid and believable until the final sequences. Helen Twelvetrees shoots an old sweetheart because he has transferred his affections to her daughter. After that the action settles into routine melodrama. Her career began when she eloped with a member of a wealthy family whose infidelities induce her to plunge recklessly into dissipation. Silliest shot: reporters who remain young after a long interval although the heroine has aged considerably.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.