The New Pictures

Christopher Strong (RKO). The cinema is where all Michael Arlen characters go when, so far as the literary public is concerned, they are thoroughly dead. Christopher Strong, derived from a novel by Gilbert ("Swankau") Frankau, is about imitation Arlen characters who can be recognized as such by their fondness for treasure hunts, evening clothes and "keeping fit." It is another caste-mark of such persons that they have nothing better to do than indulge their romantic emotions; the habit gets them into typical difficulties in this picture. A lady aviator (Katharine Hepburn) meets Sir Christopher Strong, M. P. (Colin Clive), at a treasure hunt. He is a faithful husband, she a virgin. This prompts them to have an affaire. Lady Strong (Billie Burke) is distressed. Monica Strong (Helen Chandler) is distressed also, but she is preoccupied about her own romance with a young man of fashion (Ralph Forbes) who is so slow getting a divorce that by the time he is ready to marry Monica, she is ready to kill herself for having misbehaved with a young Italian in Cannes. The aviatrix and Sir Christopher Strong are as sad about their attachment as possible. She flies grimly around the world; he meets her glumly in New York. Their depression, induced by gallantry, reaches its nadir when the aviatrix learns that she is going to have a baby. She hops into her plane, flies as high as she can, removes her oxygen mask.

Wearing aeronautical leggings, a white evening dress or a costume which, she says, makes her look like a moth, sleek Katharine Hepburn gives a performance in Christopher Strong which frequently brings Frankau's drawing room tragedy sharply to life. The picture--in which the title role is secondary--can therefore be considered a success; its purpose was to provide a glamorous background for an actress whom experts consider Hollywood's most notable box-office find since Joan Crawford. In her first cinema (A Bill of Divorcement, last autumn) Katharine Hepburn came as close as anyone can to stealing a picture from John Barrymore. Before that she had been a stage actress whose principal talent seemed to be for getting and then losing lead parts in plays like The Big Pond and Death Takes a Holiday.

In order of their importance, the qualities essential to young female cinema stars are: 1) looks, 2) ability to wear clothes, 3) ability to act. Katharine Hepburn looks, as most promising cinemactresses now do, faintly like Greta Garbo. She wears sleek clothes with severe insouciance. She acts with intelligent assurance, speaks in a strong, flat, curiously pleasant voice with the inflections of a polite upbringing in Hartford, Conn. Miss Hepburn did her first acting at Bryn Mawr, where she graduated in 1929, acquired the defect of talking too fast. Among other requisites for a U. S. Garbo, she has greenish eyes, red hair, second-hand car, distaste for socialites, willingness to wear overalls.

A Lady's Profession (Paramount) is a Lubitsch hasty pudding spiced, sauced and served by Director Norman McLeod. An English lord, aunt and daughter, played by Roland Young. Alison Skipworth and Sari Maritza, discover at tea one afternoon that they are bankrupt. With a hazy notion of buying something and selling it for more, Lord Withers gets his horse and goes to America. When Aunt Beulah and Cecily catch up with him he is the uneasy head of a speakeasy pondering the subtleties of the colloquialism "or else." Aunt Beulah behaves like an old lady at a bull fight. Gangsters water Lord Withers' beer, spike his ginger ale, finally join forces with the police in raiding his establishment. For just such an eventuality as this Cecily has been keeping up her sleeve a millionaire friend whose agent obligingly buys the speakeasy while the raiders pound upon its doors.

The complexities of this germ-sized plot permit broad liberties to Lord Withers' precocious horse, to George Barbier as Cecily's friend's father, to Roscoe Karns as the keeper of the speakeasy gate. A scene between Barbier and his butler is the funniest.

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