The New Pictures

Hail the Conquering Hero (Paramount), the newest cinematic caprice from Preston Sturges (The Great McGinty, The Miracle of Morgan's Creek), beats a satirical tattoo on the American small town. But it tells a story so touching, so chock-full of human frailties and so rich in homely detail that it achieves a reality transcending the limitations of its familiar slapstick.

Expertly sandwiched between the pratfalls and the broad pie-throwing burlesque of suburban manners lies a richer comedy idea--the alchemy by which a phoney hero is transmuted from the base metal of conventional heroics to the pure gold of true heroism.

"Like Father, Like Son." Woodrow Lafayette Pershing Truesmith (Eddie Bracken), an awkward, befuddled but eager son of suburbia, is the "hero." Given a rousing send-off by fellow citizens of Oakridge, Calif., he marches confidently off to war, only to be ignominiously bounced out of Marine boot camp because of his chronic hay fever. Burning with shame, he thinks of his father, Hinky Dink Truesmith, a hero who died gloriously at Belleau Wood on the day his son was born; of his mother, so proud and radiant, weeping on the station platform; of the brass bands tootling and banners proudly declaiming: "Like father, like son."

So mortified is Hinky Dink's boy that he heroically hoodwinks his mother into thinking he really is leathernecking it on Guadalcanal, writes his girl (Ella Raines) that he has fallen in love with someone else and goes miserably off to work in a shipyard.

What happens when six real Marines take Woodrow in hand and forcibly escort him home, his ill-fitting uniform bristling with extemporaneous decorations, is the stuff which makes Hail the Conquering Hero one of the year's most ingratiating pictures. When grateful townspeople solemnly burn the mortgage on the old Truesmith homestead and make plans to erect a suitable monument in the town square, Woodrow's misery seems to have reached its bearable limit. But it touches new depths when, in one of the most uproarious political campaigns in cinema history, the desperately reluctant Woodrow is nominated for Mayor.

In vain he explains that it's all a mistake, he did it for his mother's sake, and what is more he loves his mother very much. One city father simply turns to another and whispers gleefully: "See, he has a natural flair for politics." The sight of so much suffering inevitably makes Woodrow's ultimate ascent from his excruciating little comic hell an uncommonly heart-warming experience.

Take It Or Leave It (20th Century-Fox) is easy to take as light summer's entertainment. Seaman Eddie Collins (Edward Ryan) returns to Brooklyn and his lovely and expectant wife Kate (Marjorie Massow). For her confinement she wants the services of eminent Dr. Preston, whose fee is $1,000 and who has no time for the case anyway. Determined to by pass these difficulties, the expectant couple go to a broadcast of Phil Baker's Take It Or Leave It program. Eddie succeeds in answering not one but six $64 questions in the breathless interval before Kate leaves the radio audience for the delivery room, while Phil Baker (himself) halts the program to page Dr. Preston over the air. The six questions and one extra try answered by Eddie deal exclusively with the movies, giving 20th Century-Fox a thrifty opportunity to trot out Betty Grable, Alice Faye, Shirley Temple, Jack Oakie, Sonja Henie, George Montgomery and other high spots clipped from 20th Century-Fox films. Like the picture's obstetrical exigencies, the pace is brisk. Benjamin Stoloff's direction is gingersnappy.

Step Lively (RKO-Radio), Frank Sinatra's second picture, converts the hit stage play Room Service into a black & white musical which spoofs the show business, itself and its hero.

Story: 22 hungry actors are interned in a Manhattan hotel by a large unpaid bill. A backer appears with a check (rubber) and a protegee (Anne Jeffreys) who falls for The Voice. Even Sinatraddicts may gasp at the shots in which reluctant Mr. Sinatra and enthusiastic Miss Jeffreys practically reenact the Fall of Man in a telephone booth.

Soon the check bounces. So does the bobbysock idol, who is tossed about by accelerated slapstick like a Boy Scout in a blanket. In less tumultuous moments he sings, dances, makes love simply, smiles. These accomplishments are more or less superfluous. As shuddering exhibitors remember from his first picture, Sinatra's name on the marquee is sufficient to guarantee lipsticky posters on the outside, moaning galleryites within.

Americans All (MARCH OF TIME) probes gingerly into the open sore of racial and religious intolerance in the U.S. One of its first scenes shows young hoodlums stoning a Jewish tailor shop. Then, abruptly, the film shifts to the less inflammatory medium of newspaper headlines and pictures, passes tactfully on to speeches for tolerance by representatives of press, church and government. Almost one-third of the picture's 20 minutes is devoted to the Negro in the South and his gradual economic emancipation. Climax is an analysis of the famous Springfield (Mass.) Plan for fostering community action through public and parochial schools.

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