The New Pictures

The Stork Club (Paramount) would be just another slightly silly cinemusical if it were not for a super-amiable performance by Barry Fitzgerald and a super-dynamic one by Betty Hutton. Fitzgerald has a chance to play rich and poor, stingy and generous, angry, whimsical, sour and wistful. Betty Hutton is permitted to make funny faces, wear a bathing suit and imitate the voice of Walter Winchell. Her songs are undistinguished but her uninhibited way of putting them over is an eclectic mixture of Harlem and Bali, with a shout from the heyday of Ethel Merman and a gesture from the childhood of Shirley Temple.

The late Robert Benchley makes a genial appearance in the film, but unhappily his lines were provided by someone less talented than Benchley at writing a Benchley role. The Stork Club's Sherman Billingsley (played by Bill Goodwin) should be gratified by his screen portrait: he is pictured as handsome, witty, kindly, generous to a fault and extravagantly admired by all his own employes as well as by cafe society at large.

Stork Club is no substitute for a visit to a night club. But it is a good way to see: 1) what Barry Fitzgerald can do with even a thin role, and 2) how Betty Hutton can almost put over a hopeless lyric.

They Were Expendable (MGM) is an adaptation of William L. White's best-selling war book of 1942. On the screen it is a leisurely story of how the small PT boats put up a big fight around the Philippine Islands. The fight is carried on by a squadron of heroes skippered by smooth, hard-hitting Lieut. Robert Montgomery* and rough, romantic Lieut, (j.g.) John Wayne. Captain John Ford, who produced and directed the picture, allowed his men to be much more natural than most Hollywood heroes, kept his music low, achieved a feeling of reality rare in war films. But where Author White's Expendable was short and timely, Captain Ford's is long and late.

For the most part, the action is painstakingly slow. But John Ford's expert direction, some beautiful camera work, and excellent performances by the principals keep it from dragging. Working for Director Ford (The Informer, The Grapes of Wrath), actors always seem to be more like themselves--or at least more like human beings--than they are in other pictures.

No one in Expendable has to say or do anything embarrassingly mushy or heroic. No one has to crack any bad jokes: Characters are brought in without formal introduction and bowed out before the audience gets to know them well. Human relationships are indicated sharply but briefly. In trying to steer between war melodrama and straight documentary reporting, Expendable beats a middle course through waters that are too rough for speed.

The Man in Grey (Gainsborough-Universal) is a heavily romantic, British-made melodrama tailored for the matinee trade. Adapted from a sugary, swashbuckling novel by the late Lady Eleanor Smith, it is a Regency costume piece containing all the time-tested materials: a gypsy fortuneteller; a scowling, black-browed villain; a gushy diary kept by a doe-eyed girl named Clarissa who munches candied violets; a wavy-haired hero with beautiful strong teeth; a fire-breathing adventuress who dotes on discord and low-cut gowns.

British Cinemagnate J. Arthur Rank's latest offering for American women is a pretty, plushy tearjerker. But British reticence in the dialogue, and good taste throughout the production make The Man a less painful melodrama than many of its U.S. counterparts. The settings are smooth, rich and beautiful; the English landscapes are less foggy and more credible than Hollywood's studied reproductions. And the principal actors speak a clear, understandable language.

Margaret Lockwood (The Lady Vanishes, Night Train) as the scheming adventuress is the only member of the cast who is well known to U.S. audiences. It is possible that British Matinee Idol James Mason will be much better known hereafter. Swaggering through the title role, sneering like Laughton, barking like Gable and frowning like Laurence Olivier on a stormy night, he is likely to pick up many a feminine fan for himself in the U.S.

* In real life, Montgomery was a Commander, U.S.N.R.

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