The New Pictures

A Yank in the R.A.F. (20th Century-Fox) shows Tyrone Power in modern dress --and about time. As a cocky American pilot with an eye for the ladies, dark-eyed Tyrone is a Yank who fights at Dunkirk with the R.A.F. Although he feels called upon from time to time to refer to himself as "a worm," his performance is not as bad as all that, is pleasantly human.

Yank's title adequately prefigures its plot as well as the picture's chief weakness: too much Yank, too little R.A.F. The business of getting a London cabaret queen (bountiful Betty Grable--not the slip of a girl she used to be) and Pilot Power together is so touchy that there is small time left for R.A.F.orts. Overdeveloped though it is, the story (concocted by Producer Darryl Zanuck) notably avoids most of the ruts of Hollywood's aviation epics (e.g., Tyrone Power does not even become a hero).

The realistic air sequences are the oxygen that keeps Yank alive. Best shots: swift glimpses of Spitfires slithering toward the Channel coast, close-ups of a fighter plane's eight guns blazing, a well-constructed studio version of the evacuation of Dunkirk.

Nice British quip: Pilot Power, off for Dunkirk, asks of a returning fighter pilot: "What's it really like over there?" Drawls the laconic airman: "Cloudy." The cinema's first reconstruction of the retreat from Dunkirk--which seems destined to become as useful in drama and story as the Battle of Waterloo--has a camera angle that is certainly non-Axis. Isolationist Senators might well call Yank pro-British propaganda. Even more obviously it is pro-box-office propaganda.

It Started With Eve (Universal) will mark one more milestone for devotees of dimply Deanna Durbin. Her fans have followed Universal's sweetish nightingale through adolescence (her first date, first kiss, etc.). Now 19, and still growing strong, pretty Deanna now intones her alleluias to womanhood (she was married last spring).

As a humble hat-check girl with grand-opera aspirations, Deanna is yanked to the bedside of a dying tycoon (Charles Laughton) by the old walrus' son (Robert Cummings), who has mislaid his new fiancee. Of course the old man recovers, and the substitute fiancee has to continue her role until the young man falls in love with her and makes it permanent. The picture is a blend of amusing horseplay, bright dialogue and tears, with a noticeable sag at the end.

Marriage has worked no noticeable change in Cinemactress Durbin. She is a big girl now and, while her speaking voice is often harsh and edgy, her rich lyric soprano is mature enough to entrance Father Laughton, who ends by cutting conga capers with her in a nightclub (see cut p. 94). Her acting, still pleasantly young-girlish, could stand a shot of dramatic voltage.

Were it not for the fact that Deanna has been Universal's big money-maker for the last five years, it would be a mystery why the studio publicity refers to Charles Laughton as "one of the few stars considered important enough to share co-starring honors with Miss Durbin." The old master, in his, own accomplished eye-rolling, head-cocking, lip-pursing, massively mincing way, retaliates by walking off with the picture. His portrait of a lovable, rascally old financier neatly concludes whatever it was that Started With Eve.

In Honky Tonk (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer), Lana Turner, as a blue-blooded Boston babe, joins the long line of lusty ladies (Jean Harlow, Hedy Lamarr, et al.) who have joyfully succumbed to the bat-eared charms of frog-voiced Clark Gable.

For luscious Lana Turner, this blissful ascent to stardom is not unlike a drastic year-end model change at General Motors. Not long ago the most that was asked of her was to wear a sweater fetchingly. Now M.G.M., after a slight build-up (fatter roles in Ziegfeld Girl and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde), has demanded that she act as well as strut. She comes through surprisingly well, although the 1941 Turner may have to undergo a little more streamlining before she can hold the road at high speed.

Though Miss Turner's peaches-&-cream face is void of any marks of endeavor, she is discovered in a Western boom town. So is "Candy" Johnson (Mr. Gable), a gay con man who talks himself into and out of control of the frontier town. Although Lana is obviously overyoung to handle anyone of Actor Gable's ilk, she marries him (with reform in her eye) for better or worse. She gets worse and likes it.

The motivation for this situation and a mort of others becomes so hopelessly entangled that nobody really tries to get the straight of it. Mr. Gable, who can glide through this kind of thing without wiggling an ear, is devilish good in his sure-fire part; so are Frank Morgan (retired judge and practicing drunkard) and Claire Trevor (dancehall hostess). A super Western salted with equal dashes of shooting and sex, Honky Tank will burn no tongues, gag few gullets.

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