The New Pictures

Across the Pacific (Warner) is a midsummer melodrama that scarcely gets out of the Atlantic. On a cruise down the east coast of North America (Halifax to the Canal Zone) are Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Sydney Greenstreet. They have such a good time sunning themselves that they neglect to make much of a picture.

Badman Bogart has been cashiered from the U.S. Army for theft. But it soon becomes apparent that this was merely a ruse to put him to work in Army Intelligence. His quarry is Sociologist Greenstreet, brain of a Japanese plot to bomb the Panama Canal. At Colon, nerveless Hero Bogart busts the plot, shoots down the Japanese bomber with a captured machine gun, and all ends gruesomely.

Amid the carnage Cinemactors Bogart and Astor manage to mix lighthearted love and heavy-handed melodrama with some funny conversation.

The Talk of the Town (Columbia) spends 118 mirthful minutes making Matinee Idol Ronald Colman an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. But not before Gary Grant and Jean Arthur have taught him the difference between law as it is taught in law schools and law as it is practiced in law courts. This pedagogic plot turns into hilarious comedy, largely through the expert energy of Cinemactress Arthur, the expert apathy of Cinemactor Grant, the expert wispiness of Old-Timer Colman.

Professor Colman, spade-bearded, bachelor dean of a law school, clings to a somewhat cloistered view of the law. A renowned theorist, he is unaware of the common or police-court distortions of legal principles. Gary Grant, Jean Arthur and others resolve--not entirely unselfishly--to open his eyes. Grant is a fugitive from an arson charge. He has been framed by his boss, who burned down his factory to collect the insurance. Miss Arthur, a rather befuddled schoolmarm, just wants to see justice done.

The temptation to interest Dean Colman in Grant's case becomes overwhelming after the professor rents Miss Arthur's home for the summer: Grant is hiding out there. Colman takes him for Joseph, the gardener. But Grant's unhorticultural viewpoint staggers Colman's legal mind. When Colman asks: "How are the zinnias getting along, Joseph?" Grant replies: "They're dying."

By the time the Supreme Court appointment comes to Colman, he is so busy trying to clear Gardener Grant that he barely notices the honor. At induction time he takes his seat on the supreme bench with a new light in his eye. The light, of course, is Miss Jean Arthur. But Gary Grant gets her--a departure which would be more momentous if Producer-Director George Stevens had not scrapped his love story for the comedy.

Good quip: Grant, injured, hunted, fed up with Colman's idealistic legal philosophizings, blurts out: "Professor, you don't live in this country; you just take a room in it!"

Desperate Journey (Warner) well might have been titled the Rover boys in Naziland. The Boys (Errol Flynn, Ronald Reagan, Alan Hale, Arthur Kennedy, Ronald Sinclair) are members of an R.A.F. bomber crew shot down near the old Polish frontier. Their circuitous escape to England (three out of five get back) is accomplished with more outrageous luck than even Rover Boys can count on.

Head Boy Flynn, Warner's white-collar Tarzan, leads the Boys on a game of follow-the-leader that includes a ride in

Reich Marshal Hermann Goering's private railroad car, innumerable brushes with the obligingly obtuse Gestapo.

The hot breath of pursuit is personified by Raymond (Abe Lincoln) Massey. As a Nazi Intelligence officer, Actor Massey is commendably uncommunicative: throughout most of the picture he speaks only German. So do numerous other members of the cast. This is hard on the non-German-speaking customers, but it does not faze Cinemactor Flynn. Says he as the picture ends: "Now for Australia and a crack at the Japs!"

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.