The New Pictures

Susan Lenox (Her Fall and Rise) (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer). In searching for a story which would suitably exhibit the stoic fascinations of Greta Garbo, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer stumbled upon an extraordinary novel. Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise is the work of David Graham Phillips who wrote best-sellers 25 years ago, when best-sellers were even more likely to be trash than they are now. But Susan Lenox, though it contains cliches which make Theodore Dreiser seem epigrammatic, is no trash. Its story of hardships, financial and amorous, in the career of a woman who becomes a celebrated actress, might have seemed to a lay observer wholly suitable to the cinema. The producers of the picture thought otherwise. Susan Lenox (Her Fall and Rise) now differs from Author Phillips' story in almost all particulars, including the name of the heroine (Helga, later Susan) inserted to account for her Swedish accent. But, even as Author Phillips' honest eagerness raised the book above its manner, so the inferior story of the cinema gains validity from the impersonations of Greta Garbo and, to a smaller degree, Clark Gable.

Susan Lenox runs away from a crude, elderly farmer to whom she is to be married by an uncle. She happens into the garage of a young engineer, Rodney Spencer, who feeds her, befriends her, falls in love with her. When her uncle comes to take her back, she runs away, gets on a carnival train, joins the show. By the time she sees Rodney (Clark Gable) again, she has been forced into a compromising situation with the carnival proprietor. Misunderstandings occur, but Susan Lenox is pretty enough to get along. She becomes mistress to a rich politician, has a friend find Rodney and bring him to dinner one night so she can humiliate him. When he leaves, she finds she has humiliated herself instead, goes off to find him. What follows is a fairly routine sample of what 1931 cinema heroines do when looking for 1931 cinema heroes. Susan Lenox hunts for Rodney in cafes in St. Louis, New Orleans, San Francisco, finally finds him in a cabaret in South America. This time, she succeeds in convincing him that she is a good girl at heart, that they really love each other. Good shot: Garbo registering almost childishly complete happiness when, while fishing with Gable, she pulls in a small, slippery trout.

Two years ago, when reputations were being rescaled for sound pictures, it appeared that Cinemactress Garbo was losing ground to several rivals--Joan Crawford, Norma Shearer, Ruth Chatterton. It is now clear that, in a sense, she has no rivals. The fact that she has made comparatively few pictures for the last two years has helped her to retain an independent popularity, to thrive on the flattery of imitation. Once a soaper of chins in a Stockholm barbershop, she has already selected the island near Stockholm where she will live when retired from cinemacting. Her contract expires next year and Cinemactress Garbo, whose reluctance to become a member of Hollywood "society" baffles Hollywood, has not yet revealed her plans.

Honor of the Family (First National). There are two kinds of duels in the cinema. When the hero and the villain get up early to go at each other with pistols in a clearing, it is an out-of-door costume play, containing horses, marching soldiers and in all probability "La Marseillaise." When they strip to the waist and fence with sabres on a parquet floor, with a lady waiting to see who will win, it is an indoor costume play and the excitement is of a slightly less ennobling sort.

In this picture, the villain has been trying, with the aid of his female accomplice (Bebe Daniels) to hornswoggle an old baron (Frederick Kerr) out of his estate. The baron's nephew (Warren William) arrives just in time to save the estate, steal the accomplice, fight the duel. Frederick Kerr is a disagreeable old man; when he hears the clash of swords, he says: "I hope they kill each other." He is disappointed. Best shot: William--a new romantic hero, recruited from the Broadway stage, who walks on his toes, has a high nose, a loud laugh, a reverberant thigh for heroic slapping--impaling his adversary.

The Beloved Bachelor (Paramount) is an agreeable little comedy showing the predicament in which a man may find himself if he falls in love with his ward. Paul Lukas, the only actor in Hollywood who can speak with a foreign accent without seeming to be a roue, handles the situation with delicacy. He sends the ward (Dorothy Jordan) to dwell in an apartment of her own, gallantly continues his preparations to marry a lady (Vivienne Osborne) who has not yet divorced her husband. When the lady decides not to divorce her husband after all, it gives Lukas a chance to affect a grief he does not feel. He hides his head in his hands, murmurs, "I am doing my best to control my true feelings." Then the ward, who has been in love with Lukas ever since the picture started, breaks her betrothal to a young collegian whom she had been parading to spur her foster-father's affections. Lukas gives her a polite but not paternal embrace. Good scene: a penthouse in Naples where Lukas and Jordan have breakfast together.

The Spirit of Notre Dame (Universal). There are three axioms for football pictures. This one obeys them all so implicitly that it defeats the more important axiom that every story should contain some element of surprise. The hero calls his roommate, "You old baboon, you." He betrays the team to satisfy a personal grudge against a teammate. He atones for this error by kicking the field goal which wins the big game by one point with no seconds to play.

The Spirit of Notre Dame was made, in part, on the campus of Notre Dame and it is adroitly dedicated to the memory of the late Knute Rockne who had planned to act in it. Several celebrated Notre Dame football players appear briefly--among them, Frank Carideo, last year's quarterback, and the members of the 1924 backfield (Don Miller, Elmer Layden, Jim Crowley, Harry Stuhldreher). A few shots of real football games give the proceedings occasional authenticity and the football coach (J. Farrell MacDonald) who is meant to resemble Rockne does it surprisingly well.

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