The New Pictures

The Star (Bert Friedlob; 20th Century-Fox) is a fading movie queen (Bette Davis) who is down to her last few dollars and her last several thousand tantrums. Washed up, and with only an old Oscar to keep her company, she tries unsuccessfully to make a movie comeback. The fadeout finds her happy in the realization that, although she is through as an actress, she has a great career ahead of her as a woman with an honest, simple boat mechanic (Sterling Hayden) who has loved her all along. Joyously, at the fadeout, she speeds to her man in her Cadillac.

With many scenes shot in and around Hollywood, The Star offers some authentic behind-the-scenes glimpses of movietown activities. Its view of its subject, however, is a rather rosily romantic one, complete with a Hollywood happy ending. Nor is the star always the grandly tragic figure she is supposed to be. But if the scripters have not made the most of their theme, Bette Davis makes the most of her role. Her performance as an ex-first lady of the screen is first-rate. She is, by turns, mad and loving, nasty and nice, happy and unhappy. She appears in chic clothes and drab ones, is sad at a gay Hollywood party, watches herself on the screen, is jailed for drunken driving, works as a saleslady in a department store. It is a marathon one-woman show and, all in all, proof that Bette Davis --with her strident voice, nervous stride, mobile hands and popping eyes -- is still her own best imitator.

The Mississippi Gambler (Universal-International). As he cruises along the Mississippi on a pre-Civil War gambling boat, Tyrone Power, a dashing but honest adventurer, has all sorts of remarkable experiences. He encounters a ravishing redhead (Piper Laurie), whom he affectionately calls "pepper pot," but she declines to have anything to do with him because her weakling brother (John Baer) lost an old family heirloom to him during a game of chance. Just to complicate matters more, Piper's brother is hopelessly smitten with brunette Julia Adams, who, in turn, is infatuated with Power.

Mississippi Gambler has plenty of feudin' and fightin' with pistols, swords and fists. The men are brave and handsome, and the women good and beautiful. Evil is punished and right rewarded. With a rambling the script and lackadaisical direction, the picture, like Ol' Man River, just keeps rolling along to its predictable Technicolored happy ending.

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