The New Pictures

Beyond Glory (Paramount) is a canonization of West Point and Model Cadet Alan Ladd. At the start Ladd is accused by an ex-plebe (Conrad Janis) of hazing beyond the line of duty, and of lying to bring about the plebe's expulsion. As the story unravels in flashbacks, things look pretty black for the hero. Before he came to West Point he fought in World War II, and apparently his best friend died in battle because Ladd was a c-w-rd. And now Ladd is engaged to the poor fellow's widow (Donna Reed). But by the time the picture ends it is clear that Ladd never funked for an instant, handed out no more bullying at West Point than he took, never tells lies, and is in every way worthy of the Academy and of Miss Reed.

The story might have serialized nicely in the old American Boy. It is filmed (much of it at West Point) with romantic feeling for place and protocol, and there are appropriate performances by Ladd as the animated ramrod and by Miss Reed, the screen's All American Nice Girl. Most of the military people, however, are such Galahads, and most of the male civilians are such slobs, that ordinary men will probably slink out of the theater with their hats over their faces.

The Street with No Name (20th Century-Fox) is still another of Fox's well-made semi-documentaries (Call Northside 777, Boomerang!, etc.). This time the story is based on FBI files. The subject: postwar gangsterism.

The juvenile delinquents of yesterday have become the gangsters of today, and they are much smarter and more dangerous, we are told, than the old gangs used to be. A disguised FBI agent (Mark Stevens) hangs around the hard streets of a large provincial city and gradually works his way into such a gang. His object: to identify those responsible for a chain of thefts and killings.

The gang's leader is a pale, frail, lethal youth (well played by Richard Widmark) who is very proud of his "scientific" methods. (Sample: he schemes to get the G-man knocked off, in the course of an apparent burglary, by the local police.) His business associates are so young and fearsome that among them Mr. Stevens, no pantywaist, seems as mild and conspicuous as a country uncle. He makes himself still more conspicuous by the recklessly amateurish ways he keeps in touch with fellow agents; they signal each other, for instance, with lights at fleabag windows. However, he stirs up a lot of dirt (a high police official is involved), gets the necessary evidence, and funnels the picture into a climax in a dark factory, where a satisfying portion of hell breaks loose.

Street is a workmanlike, exciting show, but basically it does not seem different enough from a lot of crime fiction to be worth all the documentary bother. Semi-documentaries are verging, in fact, toward formula. If they are to realize their fine potentialities--or even stay as good as they started, they need new ideas and new problems. Self-repetition is not immediately fatal; but it brings death to the door, and leaves the door on the latch.

Tap Roots (Universal-International) is a Civil War movie with an angle which will probably seem new to average ex-students of U.S. history. Adapted from James Street's bestseller, it is the story of Mississippians who refused to secede from the Union, holed up in a valley, and stuck by their guns until the guns were shot out of their hands. Another angle fully as novel to moviegoers is the Handsome Confederate Officer (Whitfield Connor). Not only is he not the soul of gallantry & honuh; he has the soul of a razorback.

New angles on great old subjects by no means necessarily improve a movie. Still, it would have been interesting to know, in a little more detail, just why these Southerners felt so contrary; what their neighbors thought of them (and vice versa); what their relations were with the Yankees ; and how they managed to survive as long as they did. However, all such questions are swamped in slick-fiction formula. A fiery redhead (Susan Hayward) gets crippled for no good reason and for no good reason gets fixed up again. Her fiance, the swine mentioned above, runs off with her sister (Julie London). An intrepid editor and duelist (Van Heflin) waits Redhead out and finally gets her.

So Evil My Love (Paramount) is only as evil as the Johnston Office will bear. A dashing, crooked artist (Ray Milland) so deeply fascinates a missionary's late-Victorian widow (Ann Todd) that she becomes his front in a particularly ugly plot for blackmail, leading to murder. Thanks chiefly to Ann Todd's able and sympathetic performance, it is possible to guess that essentially this is a study of the disintegration, through sexual passion, of a morally delicate character. But the script can never say as much--still less examine the facts. Its only sufficient explanation of the widow is that she is all but certifiably gullible in matters of business and the heart. And since she is the heroine, there can't be too much emphasis on that, either. As a result, the picture is dramatically and psychologically a bit cross-eyed.

It is, however, ornately produced (in Britain, by a U.S. crew), with more than ordinary feeling for atmosphere; and scene by scene, aside from its central weakness, it is reasonably interesting and sometimes exciting. Ray Milland is helpful in hinting the honesties which no tongue dares to utter. Leo G. Carroll plays Nemesis so well as to make one wish he'd get a chance to play something else. And Geraldine Fitzgerald, who is seen much too seldom, does a fresh and welcome job as the pathetic, unstable old friend whom Miss Todd reluctantly exploits.

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