The New Pictures

A Free Soul (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer). There is nothing on the stage or screen more impressive than a Barrymore indicating degenerate addiction to alcohol--a condition which causes the eyes to pop out and the nostrils to grow, though almost imperceptibly, wider. In this picture, it is Lionel's adroitness at such tricks which enables you to believe in incidents, which, however convincingly they be arranged, are basically somewhat ridiculous. He impersonates Stephen Ashe, a brilliant and bibulous lawyer whose daughter is so much influenced by his eccentric conduct that she sees nothing wrong in having an affair with a gangster whom he has defended in court. There ensues an agreement between father and daughter: she will give up the gangster if he will give up the bottle. The agreement lasts till Stephen Ashe gets drunk again. He then disappears and his daughter goes back to her gangster. When the gangster's attentions become painfully ungallant, a fastidious young man with an English accent (Leslie Howard) goes to his gambling rooms and shoots him, then pleads guilty to murder. Stephen Ashe reappears in time to conclude his brilliant defense of the murderer by falling dead in front of the jury box. Best shot: a cupbearer keeping Stephen Ashe drunk so he can win his last case.

When a good actress finds that a picture has been stolen from her it may be a tribute to her artistry as well as proof of experience. It would be inexact to say that Lionel Barrymore steals this picture from Norma Shearer, but the role of Jan Ashe is certainly less well suited to her crisp and brilliant personality than others she has played in recently (Let Us Be Gay, The Divorcee, Strangers May Kiss). Barrymore drew a fat part -- his first since he decided to be a director two years ago --and made the most of it. The vogue of Norma Shearer may not be enhanced by A Free Soul but it shows no sign of waning. As talking pictures emerged from the stage of experiment, she became the embodiment of the new mood in cinema drama to which they seemed best adapted --a mood which can be loosely described as Sophistication. That the cool glitter of an intelligence, added to patrician beauty, should have won her such immense and protracted popularity has suggested a fact which Hollywood might not otherwise have discovered: that if the talkies have not created a new cinema public, they have changed the old one beyond recognition.

Daddy Long Legs (Fox). Ever since her first talkie Sunny Side Up Fox directors have been faced with the apparently impossible task of finding for Actress Janet Gaynor another role in which she would be able to give an equally profitable demonstration of her appealing sweetness and charm. This sentimental romance gives Actress Gaynor a chance to flutter about in an orphan asylum, endearing herself to the authorities by telling stories to the other orphans and feeding them icecream. A youthful philanthropist (Warner Baxter) who sees her in the performance of her good turns finds her behavior so cajoling that he decides to pay her way through college. She, unaware of his identity, sees his shadow distorted on the floor one day and coins a nickname for him, Daddy Long Legs.

Presently Actress Gaynor is required to make a commencement day speech, and does so in diction which has improved so much that her role is not laughably incongruous. She then meets Daddy Long Legs and finds to her surprise, that he is a personable young man whom she has met and admired before. Daddy Long Legs should achieve its purpose--to rekindle the admirers of Actress Gaynor, who was voted the most popular cinema performer of 1930.

Lover Come Back (Columbia). When Cinemactress Betty Bronson appeared as Peter Pan six years ago, she surprised admirers of Maude Adams by making a success comparable to Miss Adams's. Last year she temporarily retired from the screen, went on a vaudeville tour.

She finally reappeared last week, 23 years old and slightly heavier about the stern, as a wheedling soubrette whose bad habits included nasal babytalk, semidipsomania and an appetite for carnal misbehavior. Her performance was skillful, as was that of Actress Constance Cummings, but the story--in which the two girls wrangled for the attentions of a young business man who, though he succumbed in turn to both, never seemed much interested in either one--was a trifle of the type which Hollywood now turns out in case-lots. When repulsing the advances of a suave but likeable playboy who employs her as his private secretary (a scene which serves as the hallmark of office romance in the cinema) Actress Cummings manages better than a majority of the other actresses who have been involved in the same formula to make gaiety of manner suggest the desirable combination of virtue and worldly wisdom.

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