Best

Best picture of 1942 to New York City's cinecritics, who made their annual choices last week, was Noel Coward's profile of a British destroyer, In Which We Serve; best male performance was James Cagney's in Yankee Doodle Dandy, best job of direction John Farrow's of Wake Island. The Russian-made documentary, Moscow Strikes Back, won a special award as best "war fact" film. For top honors among actresses, the 18 voting critics passed over an armful of notables, chose a young woman whose name means nothing at all to most cinegoers: Agnes Moorehead. She played the pyrotechnic part of paranoiac Aunt Fanny in Orson Welles's The Magnificent Ambersons--her first role of any size. A versatile veteran of radio's washboard weepers, playlets and the MARCH OF TIME, she was once a teacher of English literature, holds four college degrees, is a third cousin of Eugene O'Neill. Closest competitors for the honors she won were: 2) Greer Garson; 3) Katharine Hepburn.

Sons & Heirs

For "heroism and extraordinary achievement" on operational flights "over Arctic, subArctic and tropical regions . . . over water and uninhabited areas . . . deep into hostile and heavily defended areas ... with complete disregard for his personal safety . . . [often] acting as observer, navigator, photographer and radio operator," Major General James H. Doolittle pinned the Distinguished Flying Cross on Lieut. Colonel Elliott Roosevelt, commander of one of the 12th Air Force's photographic units in North Africa.

Into the Army at Virginia's Fort Myer went (Archduke) Felix Habsburg, 26, brother (Archduke) Charles Ludwig, 24, brothers of Austrian Pretender Otto. Enlistment being out, they had "volunteered for immediate 'induction," will probably be assigned to the new U.S. battalion of Austrians after preliminary training at Camp Lee.

Distaff: Button-popping with pride was pop-eyed Eddie Cantor, sonless father of five; a daughter had popped up with bells on in show business. Off the family payroll, onto Manhattan station WNEW's as a staff announcer was 21-year-old Marilyn, happily no spittin' image (see cut).

Gallery Guide

Out of three countries came three eloquent portraits:

Family Portrait--The eagle profile of London's 63-year-old Security Planner Sir William Beveridge beside the humorous and kindly fullface of white-haired bride Jessy.

Conversazione Piece--The low-slung, square-built bubbling Bishop of Bengasi, back to Libya from Italy just in time to give a sunny greeting all over again to his habitually returning guests, the British Navy.

Portrait of a Man Posing for a Picture of a Man Posing for a Portrait--General Sir Bernard Montgomery, Rommel-rousing commander of Britain's Eighth Army, dutifully doing duty on a model's stand in Cairo.

For Boys, Toys Medals, honorary degrees, tributes on parchment are good toys for adults, but a boy wants something on wheels. Thus, the model Hurricane fighter (with rubber tires) which the R.A.F. gave Iraq's seven-year-old King Feisal last year was just right. En route to Feisal last week was another device, a belated Christmas present: a three-foot-long General Grant tank with a swiveling turret. It had wheels in stead of treads, but the chains were gold.

Makers: The Royal Electrical Mechanical Engineers, Britain's newest army corps.

Donor: General Sir Harold Alexander, Commander in the Middle East. Feisal may comfortably ask, what next? His eighth birthday comes in May.

Griefpaint

Four months after she married Actor Alexander Kirkland (her second), Gypsy Rose Lee, diva of divest, changed her mind. A separation suit is pending.

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