The New Pictures

The Merry Widow (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) is the third and by far the best cinema version of Franz Lehar's famed operetta. The first was a two-reel monstrosity in which the late Alma Rubens and Wallace Reid performed in 1912. In 1925 Erich von Stroheim directed Mae Murray and John Gilbert in the second. Cinemaddicts who have seen all three are likely to find the current version, directed by Ernst Lubitsch, as far superior to the second as the second was to the first. Only the most captious critics could find any fault with a picture which fairly entranced audiences with its oldtime music and glamour.

In the Lubitsch version, Captain Danilo (Maurice Chevalier) is dispatched from Marshovia to Paris to marry his country's richest widow (Jeanette MacDonald) lest she impoverish the royal treasury by marrying a foreigner. He goes to Maxim's for a farewell debauch, makes love to a cocotte who turns out to be the widow in disguise. Meeting her again at a diplomatic reception, he finds it impossible to convince her that his affection is sincere until he has been convicted of treason for failing in his mission.

The von Stroheim Merry Widow, like the original operetta, concerned a Prince Danilo. The real Prince Danilo of Montenegro sued Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for libel, collected $4,000 in a Paris court. Well aware that 63-year-old Prince Danilo, living modestly near Nice, must have pricked up his ears when Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer paid Princess Youssoupov $250,000 & costs for libelously dipping into the history of Russia and Rasputin (TIME, March 12; Aug. 20), Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer took no chances with this new version of The Merry Widow. In addition to demoting the Prince to a Captain, they were careful to change the date of the action from 1905 to 1885, when the real Prince was a young boy. Although they may disappoint Danilo, these alterations do not spoil the enjoyment of untitled cinemaddicts. Any picture which constitutes a field day for such specialists as Art Director Cedric Gibbons, Dance Director Albertina Rasch, Costumer Adrian, contains stars like MacDonald and Chevalier, and costs $1,600,000 is likely to suffer from a sense of selfimportance. In The Merry Widow these assets are adroitly subordinated to Director Lubitsch's ability to improve a story by telling it as if he did not mean it. The best laugh in the picture comes from an old newspaper in which Marshovia's King, preparing to abdicate, wraps up his crown. Happiness Ahead (Warner). When Warner Brothers announced last summer that they had discovered an ingenue who would be "one of the five biggest stars of the screen within a year," it was surprising to learn that their discovery was Josephine Hutchinson. A thin, pretty girl with red dish hair, sherry-colored eyes and a dimpled chin, Josephine Hutchinson had been exposed to the full view of Hollywood scouts for upwards of eight years as leading lady of Eva Le Gallienne's Civic Repertory Theatre on Manhattan's 14th Street. If her abilities for cinema were so pronounced, it seemed strange that no Hollywood spy had detected them before in her performances as Teresa in The Cradle Song, Mrs. Elvsted in Hedda Gabler, Wendy in Peter Pen, Anya in The Cherry Orchard or 30 other roles. Somewhat startled by sudden recognition, Cinemactress Hutchinson was treated to a thorough series of camera tests designed to find out the most effective means of photographing her angular, expressive face. Meanwhile Hollywood gossip writers pigeonholed information to use in case the tests turned out as well as Warner Brothers hoped: Josephine Hutchinson, 25, is divorced from a grandson of Inventor Graham Bell. She weighs 103, lives in Manhattan, likes riding, won a scholarship in an acting school at 16, plays the harp. Her next cinema jobs will be in Max Reinhardt's Midsummer Night's Dream and The Right to Live, with George Brent. The picture selected for Josephine Hutchinson's debut is a pleasant little comedy with incidental music. It supplies no opportunity to evaluate Warner Brothers' claims since it makes no demands upon her talents beyond: 1) impersonating a rich girl who finds wealth such an obstacle to a full life that she makes friends with a window-cleaner and rents a furnished apartment in which to entertain him and his friends; 2) listening to Dick Powell sing. She meets these demands effectively. The impression she gives audiences is that of Janet Gaynor with a brain. A shade more memorable than either the Hutchinson performance or the story, are Powell's songs: "Happiness Ahead," "Pop Goes Your Heart," "Beauty Must Be Loved." Madame du Barry (Warner) is a conscientious, heavy-handed effort to tell the story of one of the most exciting women who ever lived. It begins when Madame du Barry (Dolores Del Rio) is brought to Louis XV (Reginald Owen) as nominee for a place in a distinguished line of mis tresses, and ends shortly before the Revolution when, with Louis dead and his watchmaker-grandson on the throne, du Barry is led off to prison. In the interim, she has gone sleigh-riding in midsummer on snow contrived of sugar; made her pickaninny body-servant Governor of Provence; averted war with England; given her jewels to the poor; and presented herself at court in her nightgown. All of this is told with credibility if not with historic accuracy, and acted with superb vitality by Dolores Del Rio. The trouble with Madame du Barry as entertainment is that human relationships are never clearly established. Louis' deathbed scene, when he and du Barry are remembering all the fun they have had, proves disappointing because the audience has never been told whether du Barry liked the old king or merely utilized him.

The Gay Divorcee (RKO). In adapting the successful musicomedy which kept Dancer Fred Astaire busy for a year in Manhattan and London, RKO's most apparent change was to insert an accent and an extra e in the last word of the title. This should cause no greater harm than mispronunciation among cinemaddicts. For the rest, the picture sticks to the pattern of its footlight original, with satisfactory results. Fred Astaire is still the centre of whatever plot there is. A dancer on a European holiday, he pursues a young lady (Ginger Rogers) who is seeking divorce from an absurd geologist. There appear the impediments customary in musicomedy romance. Astaire is mistaken for a professional corespondent whom the young lady's guardians (Alice Brady and Edward Everett Horton) have ordered from an agency. A fatuous waiter makes ridiculous monologs. At odd moments a comely chorus dances, sings and wears elaborate costumes. Xone of this inter feres with the elegant genuflections or swift bright patter of Fred Astaire who, next to Bill Robinson the most nimble-footed hoofer on the U. S. stage, is rapidly developing into a first-class cinema come dian. Good shot: Astaire putting on his tie, coat and hat thrown to him by his valet as he sings, tap-dances about the room.

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