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The Bad Man (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) is Pancho Lopez (Wallace Beery), a rootin'-tootin' Mexican bandit, a dead ringer for Pancho Villa, whom Actor Beery portrayed with the same mops and mows back in 1934. Nothing like Holbrook Blinn's stage Pancho of 21 years ago, whose function was to satirize the average American, is the Beery portrait. The Arizona ranch which Pancho raids is owned by a gruff old character in a wheel chair (Lionel Barrymore). Both dialogue and action are thus resolved into a prolonged contest between the stallion snorts of Actor Beery and the crosspatch snuffles of Actor Barrymore. Barely submerged under these churlish exteriors lie warm old hearts which rescue true love and the mortgage in time's ticking nick.

The sepia-toned film and handsome exteriors with which Metro has dressed this old Porter Emerson Browne western do not even partly submerge the musty dramatics of the script. Spitting such lines as "Find horses for ze women, and zese two men we take for ransom. Kill ze ozzers," Actor Beery plays his part as if he were kidding the quickie horse opera. His ability and experience partly inoculate Actor Barrymore against his ridiculous role, enable him to scatter a few flickers of reality. The others (Laraine Day, Ronald Reagan, Henry Travers) seem to walk through their parts in a mechanical daze.

Silliest shot: Actor Beery galloping full speed on his charger over the bumpy Arizona countryside, towing Actor Barrymore in his wheel chair, so they can get to town in time to pay off the mortgage.

Men of Boys Town (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer). When Director Norman Taurog made Boys Town (TIME, Sept. 12, 1938) three years ago, he managed to present a commendable picture of the Nebraska home for waifs founded by Father Edward J. Flanagan. Part of its success may have been due to the fact that the founder was the film's technical adviser. Success, as it often does in idea-poor Hollywood, demanded a sequel.

Father Flanagan was so satisfied with the original Boys Town that he declined to read the script for Director Taurog's second try. That may have been unfortunate. For Men of Boys Town substitutes tears for sincerity. No one has time for happiness at Boys Town because the boys are too busy blubbering--over the death and burial of a pet mutt, the refusal of an embittered reform-school inmate to cheer up, the adoption and departure of their boy mayor.

Durable Spencer Tracy (Father Flanagan) splashes through this pail of tears with an undampened performance. Kazoo-voiced Mickey Rooney (the mayor) very nearly drowns. The paying customers, unfortunately, are not provided with rain checks.

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