The New Pictures

Her Highness and the Bellboy

(M.G.M.) was intended as a swatch of gossamer, but seems to have been spun in the innards of a Sherman tank and stitched together with a sledge hammer. Nonetheless, it has a spasmodic charm, thanks to the friendliness and prettiness of some of the people who play in it.

The story: Robert Walker, a bellhop, becomes the personal attendant of Hedy Lamarr, a mythical European princess briefly visiting a hotel on Manhattan's Central Park South. Infatuated, he no longer has time or heart to spare for June Allyson, a little cripple who loves him. No objet d'art in the royal suite is insurable against his awed backward stumblings and heel-clackings.

If Princess Lamarr had a brain in her head she would realize that the poor boy is head over heels in love with her, and have a little pity--or some feasible substitute. But she is too much absorbed in whether Warner Anderson, a rather sour-eyed journalist she once knew abroad, still loves her, and she crudely exploits the bellhop's affections in order to get another interview with the reporter. This begins to be really painful when Mr. Walker courts her in a hired dress suit, under the impression that she wants to make him her prince consort.

With enough kindliness and finesse, something delightful might have been made out of a story like this. Desperately short on finesse, the film's makers laid on the loving kindness with such a broad commercial trowel that the effect is often suffocating. Most of the archness and comedy is even harder to take: e.g., the mystification over such bits of vital indigenous slang as "hot dog" and "bull" (policeman).

Yet Her Highness and the Bellboy is not entirely an unbearable experience. Miss Lamarr, as usual, is one of the loveliest women alive--or even sleepwalking. "Rags" Ragland, as a friend of Miss Allyson's, is very gentle and likable whenever he forgets to imitate Walt Disney's Pluto. Some of the bellhop-cripple scenes are genuinely touching. And June Allyson, though she is used time & time again for no better purpose than to beat your brains out with pathos, remains a charming and promising young actress.

Shady Lady (Universal) is characterized by a winning unpretentiousness. At various times during the course of this singing B, all activity comes to a sudden stop as some irrelevant piece of nonsense skitters around on the screen for a few moments. It's as if Producer-Director George Waggner felt he had to remind the audience periodically that this is only a movie, after all, and shouldn't be taken too seriously.

Oldtime Vaudevillian Joe Frisco, still wearing his tramp clothes but without his stutter, caps the funniest of the nonsensical interludes. When the young people (Ginny Simms and Robert Paige) settle themselves on a park bench for what promises to be a familiar lovers' scene, up pops Frisco from behind the bench with an expression of terrible pain on his face. He proceeds to kid the cooing with a disrespect for the romantic routine that should make this scene worth the price of admission to moviegoers who are weary of screen mush.

With the exception of Frisco, Shady Lady is an unfamiliar concoction of several very familiar ingredients. If Ginny, who sings in the nightclub part of Alan Curtis' gambling joint, can get her lovable old crook of an uncle (Charles Coburn) to go straight, then Assistant District Attorney Paige (whom she likes a lot) may not discover her uncle's pungent past--and maybe she and Paige can get married. While these major threads, and innumerable minor threads, are being tangled and untangled, Ginny gives out tooth-somely with three new songs--one of which, In Love with Love, may get around--and a sweet new version of Cuddle Up a Little Closer.

If audiences are willing to take a tip from the film's own casual attitude towards itself, they should find it pleasant enough.

CURRENT & CHOICE

Girl No. 217 (Artkino's tale of slave labor in Germany; TIME, Sept. 24).

The True Glory (Dday to V-E day documentary; TIME, Sept. 17).

Isle of the Dead (Boris Karloff, Ellen Drew, Marc Cramer; TIME, Sept. 17).

Our Vines Have Tender Grapes (Edward G. Robinson, Margaret O'Brien-TIME, Sept. 10).

State Fair (Jeanne Grain, Dana Andrews, Dick Haymes; TIME, Sept. 3).

Pride of the Marines (John Garfield, Eleanor Parker, Dane Clark; TIME, Sept. 3).

Orders from Tokyo (Jap atrocities in Manila; TIME, Aug. 20).

Wilson (Alexander Knox, et al., popular price run; TIME, Aug. 7, 1944).

Pinocchio (Walt Disney reissue; TIME, Feb. 26, 1940).

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