The New Pictures

Goin' to Town (Paramount). She Done Him Wrong, the first picture in which Mae West was starred, was her funniest. I'm No Angel made the most money, $3,000,000. The cleanest was Belle of the Nineties, at the height of last summer's Legion of Decency Campaign. Goin' to Town is the only one which deals with the contemporary scene but, aside from this detail, it is distinguished mainly by the strictness with which it adheres to the basic West formula which, as the constant element in all four of her productions, can now be isolated and defined.

Most obvious ingredients in the West formula are her extraordinary shape, clothes and means of locomotion. In Goin' to Town she is fatter about the middle than hitherto. Her clothes are less extravagant and consequently less becoming. Her gait remains unchanged.

Almost equally important ingredients are the West wisecracks in which she gets the better of the man playing opposite her. Samples, in Goin' to Town: "If you're the backbone of your family, they'd better see a chiropractor." "I always kinda liked Delilah. There was one lady barber who made good." To an acquaintance who offers to take her bet at a racetrack: "You'll take me? Try and get me."

Least important factor in the West formula are the stories she writes herself, showing her surrounded by ineffectual admirers. In Goin' to Town, she has seven of these. A cattle-town belle who inherits a fortune in Buenos Aires, she makes herself a social success in Southampton, L. I. by giving a ball at which she sings a duet from Saint-Saens' Samson and Delilah, climaxes her career by marrying a British earl (Paul Cavanagh).

Much more extraordinary than the West formula has been its success. Dubious Paramount executives two years ago allowed her a contract for a percentage of her pictures' profits as well as a salary. When her first pictures were an enormous hit, Hollywood labeled her a fad, but instead of declining like most fads, Mae West ceased to be one, became a U. S. institution. Goin' to Town, unlikely to increase or diminish her prestige as America's sweethot, should delight those of Actress West's admirers who are especially entranced by her facility in making a stale gag seem fresh by reciting it as though its real meaning were unprintable. Good shot: Mae West's Indian retainer firing off blank cartridges to scare her jockey into winning a horse race at Buenos Aires.

The Werewolf of London (Universal). Cinemaddicts who reacted properly to Mark of the Vampire (TIME, May 6) are likely to be even more perturbed by this ugly blossom from the spring's crop of horror pictures. Werewolves are not as eerie as vampires but they are faster, more ferocious and make uglier noises. A sprig of bat-thorn, as seasoned cinemaddicts are well aware, will keep a vampire outdoors. For werewolves, bat-thorn is as innocuous as the parsley on a mashed potato and the only flower that has any effect at all is the "mariphasa," which blooms by moonlight in a valley in Tibet. Taken in small doses, the juice of the mariphasa will arrest lycanthropy temporarily. The Werewolf of London is a nasty little fantasy showing what happens when two werewolves begin squabbling between themselves in order to gain possession of the only mariphasa plant in London.

By day, Dr. Glendon (Henry Hull) is a respectable botanist. On moonlight nights, unless he gets his mariphasa, he turns into a wolfish Mr. Hyde, does his best to strangle his handsome and devoted wife (Valerie Hobson). These habits do not seriously endanger his career until another werewolf (Warner Oland) who has run out of mariphasa flowers tries to steal Dr. Glendon's last blossom. The result is a fight between the two and the liveliest sequence in the picture when Dr. Glendon is shot by a pistol bullet while chasing his wife about their house in an effort to bite her to death with teeth two inches long.

Approved by the Legion of Decency, The Werewolf of London is a shade sillier than The Bride of Frankenstein, more alarming for small children than Mark of the Vampire. Universal last week instructed its theatre-owner clients how to advertise the picture:

"Have three good-looking young girls walking in single file, tolling school bells and carrying a Werewolf banner. They will sound a curfew for all who would be careful to avoid werewolves. The sign reads: . . . 'Bar Your Doors. Lock Your Windows. Go to the Strand.'

"This stunt can also be worked by a ballyhoo man dressed in cape and black hood."

The Informer (RKO). When considering the Irish, the fixed policy of Hollywood in the past has been to do so in terms of either Abie's Irish Rose or Peg o' My Heart. Consequently, any picture of which the Irish hero is neither a rustic clown nor a cow-eyed crooner with a rush of brogue to the face can be classed immediately as a daring experiment. The Informer, of which the hero is a drunken, overgrown, dull-witted and cowardly Dublin bully, is a daring experiment and considerably more. Adapted by Dudley Nichols from Liam O'Flaherty's novel of the same name, it tells with superb, ironic power the story of Gypo Nolan (Victor McLaglen) and one night, his last, in the murky slums of Dublin. Implicit in its simple monstrous story is the portrait of a city, a revolution and a tragic human being, outlined against a background, shadowed and malevolent, of violence, murder, despair.

Reproached by his streetwalker sweetheart (Margot Grahame) for his failure to support her, Gypo chances to see, in the window of a grimy travel agency, a poster advertising passage to America for -L-10. This puts him in mind of another poster advertising -L-20 reward for information leading to the capture of Frankie McPhillip (Wallace Ford), who belongs to the Sinn Fein organization from which Gypo has been dismissed for disobedience. Frankie is Gypo's best friend. The -L-20 will take Gypo and his Katie out of Ireland. Gypo Nolan's piglike little eyes twinkle as he debates the issue thus presented with himself. Then he lumbers off to the Black & Tan headquarters and collects the reward, for revealing that Frankie has come down from the hills to his mother's house where, a few minutes later. Black & Tan troops shoot him dead.

With the money in his pocket, Gypo, instead of completing his plan, goes on an astounding nightmare spree. He gulps down a bottle of whiskey. At the McPhillip wake, he astounds Mrs. McPhillip (Una O'Connor) by pouring four silver coins into her lap. He bashes a policeman on the jaw, harangues the crowd that gathers to applaud him, buys the company beer and chips. He creates a scene in a brothel and then completes his ruin at a Sinn Fein meeting--where he has been promised reinstatement if he tracks down the spy who betrayed McPhillip--by bringing a rash and silly accusation against a man who promptly proves his innocence. Forced to confess his own guilt, Gypo is sentenced to be shot. He escapes from his improvised jail but it does him no good. The Sinn Feiners track him to Katie's shabby lodging where he has crawled off to hide. This time, the bullets reach him as he tries to run away.

Director John Ford has two salient qualities--a sharp objective style and the ability to make Victor McLaglen (usually cast as an awkward stooge for Edmund Lowe) reveal his formidable talents as an actor. Both were brilliantly displayed last year in The Lost Patrol. In The Informer, they become more noteworthy than ever in a picture that no sensible cinemaddict will want to miss. Good shot: Gypo giving a beggar a pound note, after making sure that he is blind.

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