The New Pictures

Andy Hardy Gets Spring Fever

(Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) continues the adventures of the Hardys of Carvel, the old judge (Lewis Stone), his long-suffering wife (Fay Holden), moony Marian (Cecilia Parker) and bratty Andy (Mickey Rooney). The Hardys' wholesome, homey doings are designed to arouse in their millions of fans no emotion stronger than delighted recognition. Andy, more than ever the tail that wags the Hardy dog, reacts to spring by falling in love with his pretty new dramatics teacher (Helen Gilbert).

Effect of the first lilacs on Judge Hardy is to make him an easy prey for a couple of swindlers. Andy and his father eventually cool off, to the accompaniment of such a wealth of domestic detail, adolescent humor and sage headshakings that hyper-domestic cinemaddicts will have a wonderful time. Those who dislike Mother's Day will be apt to feel that they have just been through it again.

The Man in the Iron Mask (United Artists-Edward Small) is a sword-rattling, Dumascene version of one of the wildest stabs ever made at history by that extravagant Romancer Alexander Dumas. Its hypothesis: that when Louis XIII's good Queen Anne was brought to bed in 1638, she gave birth to twins. Because dynastically two heirs would have been worse than none, the King reared one son as the future Louis XIV, palmed off the other as the son of his loyal Gascon guard, d'Artagnan (Warren William).

What Louis XIII could not foretell was that Louis XIV (Louis Hayward) would grow up into an arrogant wastrel, his brother Philippe of Gascony (Louis Hayward) into a fine broth of a boy, next to his tutor d'Artagnan the best blade in France. Brother Louis at first finds Brother Philippe useful as a decoy for assassins and as a stand-in with his betrothed, the Spanish Infanta Maria Theresa (Joan Bennett), while he is dallying with brassy little Louise de la Valliere (Marian Martin).

But when Louis learns Philippe's real identity, he claps him into the Bastille, cruelly crowns him with an iron mask. According to the picture, d'Artagnan's musketeers soon had him out again, gave Louis the mask and Philippe his name, girl and crown. The picture shows Philippe as something of a New Dealer, eager to abolish the salt tax and dress up the peasantry. But judging from the history of Louis XIV's reactionary reign (1643-1715), France never felt the difference, must have switched bottles without changing its Bourbon.

For Actor Louis Hayward, who has made several false starts in cinema, his spirited attack on what the movie industry still calls a Douglas Fairbanks role may at last mean a place above the Hollywood salt. Born 30 years ago in Johannesburg, son of an English banker, Actor Hayward made his London stage name as a juvenile smart enough for Noel Coward shows, his screen debut in the English version of Sorrell and Son. Brought to Hollywood four years ago, he swashbuckled promisingly in Anthony Adverse but soon ran into an unpredictable snag: he began losing his British accent. Last year Producer Edward Small rescued him from the B's and supporting parts to skate in The Duke of West Point after the death of British Skater Jack Dunn, liked him well enough to entrust him with his crucial part in The Man in the Iron Mask.

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