The New Pictures

Dodsworth (Samuel Goldwyn-United Artists). "Why don't you try stout, Mr. Dodsworth?" drawls a woman's voice from the shadowy corner of a steamship deck. Sam Dodsworth (Walter Huston) who has just asked the steward for a drink that will soothe his nerves, whirls around, surprised. Mr. Dodsworth's surprise was nothing to that of Producer Sam Goldwyn and his staff when, at this line, I he audience at a Hollywood preview last week burst into applause. The applauders were not partisans of stout but of Mary Astor, whose first line they recognized even before the camera moved over to her. Throughout the picture they kept applauding frequently and as she was coming out of the theatre in the flesh with Screenwriter Marcus Goodrich and her mother, they mobbed her. cheered her. shouted "You're all right, Mary!", begged her for her autograph.

Thus did the public affirm its recognition of a line performance, its sympathy for Mary Astor's position in her recent suit to get custody of her daughter (TIME, Aug. 17 & 24). Meanwhile Fate had brought Mary Astor the greatest picture, the most human and sympathy-winning role of her life just when she needed it most. Dodsworth, a forthright investigation of a universal problem, tells the story of a man battling to save his marriage from his wife's desire to keep young by cutting amorous capers. Sam sold his Revelation Motor Co. because Fran (Ruth Chatterton) wanted to go abroad and have some fun. Fun's first embodiment, a handsome shipmate, sharpened her eagerness by telling her quite frankly what he thought of women who began flirtations they were not prepared to finish. With Arnold Iselin (Paul Lukas) she finished her next one in Biarritz. To get her back. Sam worked with the same uncompromising power that had made him a motor tycoon, but their reconciliation was interrupted by Kurt (Gregory Gave). This time she asked for a divorce. Kurt, she felt sure, would extirpate the middle age she dreaded so, and which Sam seemed so ready to accept. A footsore, lonely Sam was being comforted in Italy by the platonic favors of a friendly expatriate named Edith Cortright (Mary Astor) when Kurt's mother told Fran why the old wives of young husbands are invariably miserable. From the automatic habit of more than 20 years Sam resumed the job of taking care of Fran, rebelled at the last moment, went back to Mrs. Cortright.

Dodsworth was adapted by Sidney Howard from his own dramatization of Sinclair Lewis' novel, directed with a proper understanding of its values by William Wyler, splendidly cast and brilliantly played.

The Devil is a Sissy (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) is a strange title for a valiant and moving little story about three boys on a Manhattan tenement street. Claude (Freddie Bartholomew) docs not belong on the street at all. He is only there by courtesy of his rich mother who legally arranged for him to spend six months a year with his unsuccessful father. Living where real things happen seems a lot of fun even though the other boys chalk "Kick Me" on his back. His first day in school is the day the father of Gig Stevens (Mickey Rooney) is electrocuted. Thereafter the problem of the Huck Finnish gang is to buy a headstone for Gig's father. Claude gets the money by taking the gang to rob his playroom in his mother's fashionable house. When Gig and Buck (Jackie Cooper) are haled into court for selling the toys Claude has to tell it was his house, thus forfeiting what he has risked so much to win--acceptance in the gang. The final scenes in which he re-establishes himself are over-sentimental but not cluttered up enough to spoil the mood of an unusual picture.

On a level with the best scenes Master Bartholomew has ever played are his anguished efforts to make Gig and Buck forgive him for having longish hair and talking good English; his quivering elation when he is introduced to Gig and Buck's friends, the six-toed boy and the boy whose distinction is that he eats bugs; his despair when, having sought favor with them by taking the blame for throwing a football through a window, he is ostracized for having tried to be noble. Cinemaddicts who for years have longed to cuddle Jackie Cooper will find he has suddenly assumed the proportions of a dock-walloper, but his size and growling baritone are somewhat offset by a hilarious scene in which he cowers from a tiny school principal (Etienne Girardot).

Give Me Your Heart (Warner) exhibits Kay Francis enjoying the rewards of illicit romance. Having borne a bastard to a married sprig of British aristocracy, she travels de luxe to New York and marries a millionaire (George Brent). In the U. S., she hankers after her brat, left in England to be reared by its father and his invalid wife. When this couple arrives in New York on a visit, one good look at her infant restores her peace of mind. She decides that the present of a hobby horse will write him off her books for good, allow her concentration on her husband to be undivided.

Adapted from a play called Sweet Aloes which, with Evelyn Laye in the leading role, lasted three weeks in New York last winter, Give Me Your Heart is a conventional tearjerker, aimed especially at female cinemaddicts for whom its sentimental appeal will theoretically be reinforced by Kay Francis' clothes. In Manhattan last week it served as the opening attraction at the new 1,700 seat Criterion Theatre.

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