The New Pictures

The Tunnel of Love (M-G-M), translated from the Broadway boff of 1957 translated from the bestselling comic novel by Peter De Vries, has been leeringly advertised as "a bedtime story for adults only"; one that is dedicated to the possibly pornographic proposition that "one and one makes three." Moreover, to the delight of MGM's front office, Chicago's board of censors has officially rated the film "For Adults Only," and its success at the box office seems assured.

The board might perhaps more usefully have nominated The Tunnel "For Children Only," since it is clear that only a childish nature could possibly find anything to enjoy in this tiresomely smutty story. The objection is not that the film is full of sex; the sorry fact is that there is no sex in it at all. There is only the most pitiful of sex substitutes--the steady drool of risque remarks.

The scene is set in Westport, Conn., a commuters' community north of Manhattan. Doris Day and Richard Widmark, bright young-marrieds and active members of what might be called the Upbeat Generation, are trying desperately to have a baby. "We're trying everything," the wife says pointedly. "We're going to exhaust every possibility." After that, the dialogue turns a more and more dull and depressing shade of blue, until even the actors begin to look shamefaced, like children who suspect that, if they get caught saying such things, somebody is going to wash out their mouths with soap.

Mardi Gras (20th Century-Fox) is one of Hollywood's periodic attempts to transfuse the ailing business with "new blood"; but this time, even though it is brightened up with some far-from-anemic De Luxe Color, the blood scarcely seems red enough to do the patient much good.

Pat Boone, who heads the bill, is an enormously popular young singer who can readily be distinguished from most of his rivals by a peculiarity in his appearance: he looks washed. Christine Carere, a French import that Fox is trying to merchandise, is a remarkably pretty girl who looks as if she had never thought of anything more complicated than hinky dinky parlay-voo. With such competition, it is not very hard for another young comer named Gary Crosby--Bing's oldest boy--to steal the show with a light-fingered skill that makes his performance considerably more than a clever paparody.

The show itself is hardly worth stealing. The story is the usual military schoolboy stuff about the cadet who falls in love with a movie queen and forces her to choose between brass buttons and gold doorknobs. The songs and dances are on the safe side--though there are a couple of good licks in a number called Bigger Than Texas ("Is my horsefly-flickin', burro-kickin', cotton-pickin' love for you"). Only in the dialogue have the scriptwriters succeeded in striking an original note. "Hello there," somebody says, and somebody else replies: "Hello where?" And then again, the movie star shyly inquires: "Isn't it pleasant to have your head turned?" To which the cadet replies: "Well, yes, unless your head gets out of hand."

Inspector Maigret (Lopert). One dark night a woman is stabbed to death in the Rue des Rosiers. Five minutes later the criminal calls the Paris police and challenges Inspector Maigret to catch him. Enter Maigret--sometimes known as "the French Hercule Poirot"--the hero of at least 44 romans policiers by Georges Simenon and generally conceded to be one of the most believable bloodhounds in the literature. Plain, paunchy, respectable, he has the shrewdness as well as the looks of a village grocer; and in this film he is played to the liverish life by Jean Gabin.

"C'est la chasse d'un tigre," Maigret mutters grimly as the murderer's score mounts. When the tiger has made his fourth kill, Maigret sets a trap. He invents a suspect, credits him with the crimes, counts on the killer (whose vanity has been demonstrated in his challenge to the police) to protest his guilt by attempting a fresh murder--which 500 plainclothesmen stand ready to prevent. The trap springs, but the tiger escapes, and Maigret is forced to track him through some pretty tortuous back alleys of psychology--the sort of area a camera can easily get lost in. But Director Jean Delannoy knows exactly where he is going, and with the help of a good story, competent actors, clever lines and clear subtitles, he guides the moviegoer unerringly to the object he has in mind: excellent entertainment.

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