The New Pictures

The Man from Colorado (Columbia) puts a reverse twist on the old story of the G.I. who comes home from the wars and hires his colonel to sweep out the office. This time, the colonel (Glenn Ford) returns to Colorado territory after the Civil War, becomes a judge, and proceeds to mop up the prison floors with men formerly in the cavalry with him.

The colonel develops a nasty habit of passing the death sentence on everybody who frustrates or annoys him. Sooner or later, most of his ex-Army pals get on his nerves. Eventually he gets so careless about who is hanged that his wife (Ellen Drew) and his best friend (William Hoiden) run out on him. A lot of the town-folk still regard him as a hero, but at this point the movie becomes an unusual western by seeming to ask: "Is there a psychiatrist in the house?"

The Man from Colorado has no more humor than a lawyer's shingle, but it has suspense and some exciting shots of fist fights and burning houses. All in all, it is a better than average horse opera.

Unfaithfully Yours (20th Century-Fox) was written, produced and directed by Preston Sturges, whose films have often been noted for novelty and freshness (Hail the Conquering Hero) as well as for questionable taste (The Miracle of Morgan's Creek). This one is a brilliant idea for a two-reel comedy dragged out for nearly five reels.

Sturges takes far too much film footage setting the stage for his gag. Rex Harrison is an aging, temperamental and gabby symphony conductor. He is madly in love with his beautiful young wife (Linda Darnell), but he begins to suspect her, unjustly, of carrying on with his handsome young secretary (Kurt Kreuger). Brooding over his jealousy as he conducts a concert (Rossini, Wagner, Tchaikovsky), he imagines himself solving his domestic triangle in three different ways: 1) by murder, 2) by generosity to the young "lovers," and 3) by suicide.

When he actually tries out the murder plot he has imagined so smoothly, he bungles it hilariously. Having spent too long arriving at his gag, Sturges cannot resist overworking it. Harrison is so funny stepping through a cane-bottomed chair that he is allowed to do the whole routine a second time.

Unfaithfully Yours often trips over its own snarled plot lines and falls flat. But Rex Harrison gives a sly, buoyant performance in a tough, wordy role. And some of Writer-Director-Producer Sturges' whimsy and brisk dialogue are worth the wait through the dull spots. In a cast heavy with "characters," Edgar Kennedy, Lionel Stander and Rudy Vallee stand out. Vallee is especially good as a stuffed-shirt multimillionaire.

Fighter Squadron (Warner) is a war movie about U.S. flyers who operated from bases in England. It is a moderately successful blend of Hollywood histrionics and actual combat films from World War II. Its producers made a sincere effort to mix the two elements. The combat footage was used as a core for the story, rather than dragged in as a touch of "realism." The all-male cast is given convincing all-male dialogue, and there is a painless minimum of comic relief. Above all, there is skillful exploitation of the fierce beauty of aerial battle photography.

The trouble with Fighter Squadron seems to be that Writer-Producer Seton Miller has given his flyers dual, contradictory personalities. On one side, they are clean-limbed, jut-jawed American boys who never wash out, never suffer combat fatigue or fear. Another of their characteristics that will hand veterans in the audience a big laugh: they never finish a tour of duty without begging for another. They are always heroic and self-sacrificing --and always over-glamorized. The squadron ace (Edmond O'Brien) risks court-martial by disobeying flight orders to help a pal. When O'Brien parachutes from a crippled plane, his wing man (Robert Stack) brashly lands in enemy territory to rescue him. This threadbare sort of hokum is fairly hard to take.

What is almost as hard to take about Fighter Squadron's high-minded fellows is the cruel pleasure they seem to get out of destruction and killing. (Blood lust was not an outstanding characteristic of U.S. pilots in the best wartime documentaries, such as William Wyler's brilliant Thunderbolt.) Sample disconcerting dialogue from a knight of the barracks as he shoots down an enemy in flames: "Burn, yuh crumb, burn!"

Dulcimer Street (J. Arthur Rank; Prestige), a sort of neighborhood Grand Hotel, takes a lingering, sympathetic look at the people in a modest London lodginghouse. Following the lead of Norman Collins, who wrote the novel, Director Sidney Gilliat (The Notorious Gentleman, The Adventuress) examines with a friendly eye the small weaknesses and quiet virtues of a few plain people.

The crooked "spiritualist" (Alastair Sim) despises his own shoddy fakery; an old political crackpot (Stephen Murray) really wants to improve the world; the cadging cockney spinster (Ivy St. Helier) needs to cadge a bit of affection. The young man upstairs (Richard Attenborough) turns thief and killer to get money to impress the girl in first floor, front (Susan Shaw). The mousy, retired clerk (Wylie Watson) digs into his life savings to help a neighbor.

Beginning by sympathizing with its characters, Dulcimer Street ends up by frankly admiring some of them. Like many well-made British movies, this one lacks the fast Hollywood pace, but makes up for its slow speed by a patient, understanding humor.

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