The New Pictures

The Adventures of Maya (German). U. S. folk of all sizes and ages will go many times to see how the blunt bee survived the perfidy of the green spider and the mischief of hornets to bring the message of battle to his drowsy queen. This picture took six years to make and is a coherent, exciting story in which all the actors and actresses are insects. Best shot: the warring swarms among looted honeycombs.

Madame X (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer). When the heroine, drunken, degraded, cast off by her husband and forbidden to see her son, screams to the bully who has beaten her that some day her son will be big enough to revenge her--when she is brought to court a murderess, too poor to hire a lawyer, and the judge appoints to defend her a handsome young man, yes, the son himself--and when the young man passionately and skillfully pleads the cause of the outcast woman--it all seems, on cool reflection, too crude to be true. But audiences do not reflect any more coolly during this picture than they did when the play was a stage hit 19 years ago. Lionel Barrymore capably directed a fine cast which includes Lewis Stone and is distinguished by the superb acting of Ruth Chatterton. Best shot: Miss Chatterton telling her troubles in a cafe.

The Leatherneck (Pathe). This is a flashback melodrama of U. S. Marines in Eurasia. The complicated romance between the best-looking Marine and a Russian girl is so intelligently directed by Howard Higgin that at times you do not notice that the story is entirely pointless. Best shot: the camera moving from one face to another at a court-martial while a voice from an unseen source thunders accusations.

Girls Gone Wild (Fox). Irrelevant interventions of a gang war, written subtitles and a synchronized sound accompaniment, do not keep a cop's son from marrying a millionaire's daughter in a silly picture that will probably be a fair box-office hit. Typical shot: a dying gangster stiffening in the arms of a society girl with whom he was dancing when shot.

Nothing but the Truth (Paramount). Mildly amusing comedy, centering on Richard Dix's efforts to win a bet by telling the truth for 24 hours, is brought to life by chubby Helen Kane. Funniest shot: Miss Kane singing "Do, Do Something."

Helen Kane sings in an idiom and with an inflection peculiar to the Bronx, N. Y., where she grew up and where her father ran a neighborhood store. In vaudeville she was one of those fat, supernaturally stupid girls who serve up joke cues to dapper comedians. Later, in Broadway nightclubs, her fame spread as a singer of semi-salacious, contemporary folk songs. She sang with Paul Ash's orchestra, later in the musical comedy Good Boy. Young men in eastern colleges have voted for her as their favorite actress.