The New Pictures

Yes, My Darling Daughter (Warner Bros.) is an adaptation of Mark Reed's mildly sophisticated, mildly amusing play about a humorless young couple who enjoy an earnest week-end together before getting married. Three weeks ago the New York State Board of Censors banned the movie. Last week, the Board of Regents rescinded the ban and Warner Bros., eager to capitalize on the publicity, hurried it simultaneously into Manhattan's Strand and Globe Theatres. Critics and audiences found it mildly sophisticated, mildly amusing.

Cafe-Society (Paramount). Within the last decade, a variety of influences, including Repeal, Depression, the servant problem and congenital hysteria, have caused one faction in Manhattan's insecure aristocracy of wealth to spend their evenings in public restaurants rather than their homes. As a group, this faction got itself labeled Cafe Society. Top chroniclers of Manhattan society are "Cholly Knickerbocker" (Maury Paul), $50,000-a-year oldtime smart-setter for the New York Journal and American, and Lucius Beebe who writes a weekly column for the New York Herald Tribune.

Making of this picture caused a spat between Messrs. Paul and Beebe. When Paramount paid Columnist Beebe $500 for "inventing" the title, Reporter Paul jealously announced that it was he who had done the inventing, threatened to sue. Unwilling, however, to give so much free publicity to Paramount, he decided not to sue, has since received no credit line, no money. The picture itself is likely to aggravate Mr. Paul's indignation. Cinemaddicts with imagination might find that he and his 80-year-old mother are rudely caricatured, along with other celebrities of Manhattan night life, including its fat hostess, Elsa Maxwell (now under contract to a rival company, Twentieth Century-Fox). Columnist Beebe, however, appears in person.

Hollywood has never been notable for its success in reflecting major social changes. This study of a minor one is no exception to the rule. The story of Cafe Society is the familiar one of a reporter (Fred MacMurray) who marries an heiress (Madeleine Carroll). It achieves the almost incredible distinction of libeling its subject.

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