The New Pictures

Monsieur Beaucoire (Paramount), the late Booth Tarkington's graceful romance about a Louis XV nobleman who disguised himself as a barber, was once (1924) a vehicle for Rudolph Valentino. Times (not to mention plots) change: today it is a scooter for Bob Hope. Mr. Hope, fortunately, plays the masquerading role his own way.

The result ranges from ho-hum when Royalty seeks laughs by bellowing "Shut up," to ha-ha when Hope tries on the mannerisms of a grand seigneur. Hope is a barber forced, for reasons too tortuous to relate, to impersonate the first swordsman and ladykiller of France. He is also supposed to marry the Spanish Infanta (Marjorie Reynolds), though he loves a scullery maid (Joan Caulfield).

He faces these privileges and embarrassments about as usual (i.e., as a dastard in love and a laggard in war). The climax: a fight with Joseph Schildkraut, in which the antagonists get fouled up in an 18th Century chamber orchestra.

The young ladies are nice to look at, and Patric Knowles, as the Duke Hope pretends to be, sings some pleasant songs. But only Hope and Schildkraut, as a villainous Spanish general, know how to put a really fine edge on all this sort of foolishness.

Two Years Before the Mast (Paramount), based on Richard Henry Dana Jr.'s semi-classic, is no more unfaithful to its original than most screen adaptions. Taken as plain fiction, Two Years Before the Mast is a good, rough sea story. Taken as Paramount presents it--as a faithful Dana report of the U.S. merchant seaman's lot a century ago--it sounds and looks like a job of rewriting by one of the more fanatical members of the National Maritime Union.

Some of the fabrications are reasonably white. No more than standard hokum is transfused into healthy Dana by inventing Hero Alan Ladd, even though he practically crowds Author Dana (Brian Donlevy) off the screen. And since Mr. Ladd is on deck, love interest (Esther Fernandez) has to be expected, though Author Dana and his shipmates somehow did without it.

But it is something else to present kinds and degrees of hardship, violence, cruelty and injustice which Dana never recorded. There are no scenes of impressment in the book, nor any of murder. There is only a murmur of mutiny, which the captain quells by reasonableness, not violence. The captain is not interested in breaking his own speed record, regardless of the well-being of his men. When a case of scurvy develops, he gets more fresh food as soon as he can.

There is less suggestion in the book than in the film that the seagoing proletariat is getting the life squeezed out of it for the satisfaction of a martinet and of the shipowner's wallet. The original account, in fact, is milder but more interesting, and obviously the work of a levelheaded and observant young man who had a sober interest in setting down neither more nor less than he saw.

But as straight adventure the picture is good. Paramount's standard conception of a mad seacaptain becomes something very far from stock in Howard da Silva's fine, complex, pent-up performance. William Bendix is real and frightening as his brutal and devoted first mate, and Brian Donlevy is resolute and sympathetic whenever he has a chance. Alan Ladd suffers, fights and makes up to womankind with his usual chilly proficiency and Barry Fitzgerald scuttles obscurely around in the galley, making all he can of his few lines.

Holiday in Mexico (MGM) stimulates the eye and ear, but gives the pulse and brain a good 127-minute rest. It is chiefly a lavish Technicolor showcase for the considerable singing talents of a freshfaced young actress named Jane Powell. Jane plays the adolescent daughter of the U.S. ambassador to Mexico (Walter Pidgeon). The plot relentlessly examines her kittenish romance with the British ambassador's young son (Roddy McDowall) and her schoolgirl crush on celebrated Pianist Jose Iturbi ( played by Jose Iturbi). Between times there are songs by Jane, songs by Ilona Massey (father Pidgeon's romantic interest), piano selections by Iturbi and rumbas led by Xavier Cugat (played by Xavier Cugat).

Black Angel (Universal) is the kind of murder mystery that ought to turn up more often. It is not memorable, in the Hitchcock sense, but neat, alert and thoroughly enjoyable. Its story: the husband (Dan Duryea) of a murdered blackmailer (Constance Dowling) and the wife (June Vincent) of the man condemned as the killer, try to find out who really did it. In the process they mix with Homicide Squad Captain Broderick Crawford, Night club Owner Peter Lorre, and Bodyguard Freddie Steele. They also whisk through a lot of the nicely observed detail which more pretentious movies usually miss. Samples: Duryea 's mannerisms as a dipsomaniac jazz pianist; Michael Brandon showing how a grade-A Hollywood columnist acts, and is treated, on a visit to a grade-B hot spot.

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