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Flight from Destiny (Warner) ponders laboriously over a problem that should have no more than a metaphysical interest for the millions of cinemaddicts for whom it was designed. Query: if you have only six months to live, would you be justified in committing a murder which you believe to be in the best interests of society?

After 13 minutes of aimless chitchat by the actors, this unpleasant poser is finally planted on the drooping shoulders of Thomas Mitchell, a golden-hearted old college professor whose days are numbered by heart disease. Along come a former star pupil (Jeffrey Lynn) and his pretty wife (Geraldine Fitzgerald) whose happy home has been upset by a prowling, pernicious femme fatale (Mona Maris). Mitchell tracks her down with such professorial precision, makes such painfully punctilious notes on her case that his conclusion that she is loaded with "greed, selfishness and brutality" will come as a surprise to no one. Nor will his eventual course of action. Chief merit of the picture: the professor doesn't discover at the end that his heart is all right.

The Invisible Woman (Universal) gets off to a bounding start with an idea wonderfully suited to the leering talents of John Barrymore: he is a scampish scientist with a contraption for making people invisible. However, the story rapidly runs out of breath, thereafter staggers through a plodding plot about a fatuous young moneybags (John Howard) who is inexplicably attracted to the unseen subject of the Barrymorian experiments (Virginia Bruce). Added but unnecessary wrinkles are furnished by eyebrowed Oscar Homolka, a gangster who steals Barrymore's machine for nefarious purposes.

Only occasionally does Barrymore's great talent for mimicry flare. For the remainder he merely peeks over a pince-nez, flings an occasional gesture with his personable paws as if the whole business were just a nuisance.

CURRENT & CHOICE

Kitty Foyle (Ginger Rogers, Dennis Morgan, James Craig; TIME, Jan. 13).

Night Train (Rex Harrison, Margaret Lockwood, Paul von Hernreid; TIME, Jan. 13).

Victory (Fredric March, Betty Field, Sir Cedric Hardwicke; TIME, Jan. 6).

The Bank Dick (W. C. Fields; TIME, Dec. 30).

Santa Fe Trail (Raymond Massey, Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland; TIME, Dec. 23).

Go West (Marx Brothers; TIME, Dec. 23).

The Letter (Bette Davis, Herbert Marshall, James Stephenson; TIME, Dec. 2).

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