The New Picture

Merrily We Live (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) spins a yarn as merry as it is unimportant about a delightfully diffuse matron (Billie Burke) whose hobby is putting tramps back on their feet. When unshaven, wayfaring Author Brian Aherne wants to use her telephone, her uplifting eye lights up. First thing Wayfarer Aherne knows he has become the family's handsome, clean-shaven chauffeur; next thing he knows, the roving eye of Daughter Constance Bennett has lit up, too, and he becomes the centre of as stormy a family ruckus as ever squalled. Before its capricious hour-and-a-half is over, Merrily We Live whisks up a first-rate cast (Alan Mowbray, Clarence Kolb, Bonita Granville, Patsy Kelly), deposits them in a neat row leading straight to its sure-fire climax.

That the gay course of Merrily We Live is always breezy but never aimless is due partly to its Morrie Ryskind-Eric Hatch (My Man Godfrey) pattern, more particularly to the craft of Director Norman McLeod, whose technique of making every character seem important in neatly overlapped situations makes for speedy, clinker-built comedy. A minister's son, handsome, six-foot, 39-year-old Norman McLeod left Oxford to become a World War aviator, left Europe to become an assistant director on Christie comedies. In Hollywood he drew cartoons (as decorations for subtitles), became so proficient with his wiry, single-line caricatures that Dole Pineapple Co. pays him well for the right to use them. In directing he uses his pencil sketches to show the actors what he wants.

Having directed comedy teams like Mary Boland & Charles Ruggles and the Marx Brothers, last year in Topper Director McLeod tried his hand at making a comedienne out of Glamor Girl Constance Bennett, who came to him with a reputation for temperament. Said Director McLeod: ''We've got a good cast, a swell crew and a good story. If anybody gets out of line, it will be you." Actress Bennett: "What do you do about people who get out of line?" Director McLeod: "I give 'em a good swift kick right where they need it." Topper, which turned out to be as funny as one of McLeod's sketches, had all its lines in place.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.