The New Pictures

Do You Love Me? (20th Century-Fox) is a tuneful, lushly colored, handsomely dressed, unusually foolish musical. Its three chief actors: popular Trumpeter Harry James, who makes hardly any pretense at acting but blurts his trumpet often enough and loud enough to please even his most insatiable fans ; popular Crooner Dick Haymes, who tears off a pretty love song with such little apparent effort that there's no good reason why he should be required to act at all; red-haired Maureen O'Hara, who photographs so beautifully in Technicolor that no one could possibly care a hang whether she acts or not.

To fill in the awkward pauses between the trumpeting; the crooning, a style show full of gorgeous models and a big classics v. swing concert by a full symphony orchestra, a rudimentary plot is occasionally visible. The only interesting part of this plot is Miss O'Hara's version of the reliable old ugly-duckling-into-swan routine.

As the sobersided dean of a stuffy music school, she is a not-very-convincing ugly duckling. Her horn-rimmed spectacles, sensible oxfords and slicked-back hair wouldn't fool anyone. But for story purposes, Trumpeter James refers to her as an "iceberg." The criticism piques Maureen. Before you can say Max Factor, she has gone shopping for a fancy hairdo and a six-skin blue fox stole. As a swan, she is, of course, downright sensational. The long, low whistles she inspires in all the male members of the cast are the most realistic part of the entire picture. Once her glasses are off, Maureen's only real problem is making up her mind which lovesick suitor she'll marry.

Shot most likely to fascinate cinemaddicts: a mere glimpse of the famed face and legs of Betty Grable (Mrs. Harry James in real life), who plays a brief bit part as a James fan.

O.S.S. (Paramount) is a slightly hysterical account of how World War II was won--or at least shortened--by Geraldine Fitzgerald and Alan Ladd.

All during the war, Hollywood longingly eyed the very hush-hush activities of the Office of Strategic Services, which was rumored to be parachuting real American spies into occupied Europe. Anyone could predict that such goings-on would some day be a natural for the movies. Sure enough, the minute wartime secrecy was ended, several major studios began stumbling over each other to riffle through the official files. Paramount hired 30 ex-O.S.S. heroes (as technical advisers and bit-players) and shot thrill-packed scenes for seven frantic weeks. Result: Paramount has beaten all competitors with the first movie based on O.S.S. case histories. It is not very good.

There is novelty and considerable suspense in the opening scenes of this hasty production. Then the plot drops Ladd and Fitzgerald into Nazi-held France, but leaves all novelty behind. Most of the incidents based on real O.S.S. experiences turn out to be the old, threadbare ingredients of wartime melodrama: contacting the French underground, short-waving vital messages to London, dynamiting a railway tunnel, throwing the beautiful female operator to the Gestapo wolf.

As a routine thriller, O.S.S. is not a bad picture. The pity is, since its manufacturers had access to a wealth of new, exciting material, that it is not a really superior thriller.

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