The New Pictures

The Adventures of Don Juan (Warner) is the latest episode in the Perils of Errol (Flynn). In this chapter, Errol is knee-deep in the intrigues of the Spanish court of Philip III and neck-deep in its lavish costumes. He is also once again a rascal with a 14-karat heart and a 1-karat mind. His intentions are high, true and gallant. His planning could at best be called faulty; it usually ends with Errol on the cold side of the dungeon walls and the villains holding the keys.

The big job in Don Juan is to save pretty Queen Margaret (Viveca Lindfors) and her slightly addled king (Romney Brent) from the plots of an evil Duke de Lorca. Errol manages it with the help of nothing more than fire, sword, galloping horses, conspiring friends, and a few scattered incidents when he is called upon to prove that his strength is as the strength of ten because his heart is afire with love for the queen. No question of credibility is really involved in all this, since the story at no time resembles any situation ever likely to have been faced by any human being.

Live Today for Tomorrow (Universal-International). On the bench, Judge Fredric March is a pitiless interpreter of the letter of the law. All of a sudden the judge gets more of his own kind of medicine than he can swallow. His wife (Florence Eldridge), he learns, has an obscure, incurable and agonizing disease. Of course neither he nor his old friend the doctor dreams of telling the poor woman what she's in for, but ultimately, in pity and anguish, the judge determines to kill her.

Live Today is unquestionably an earnest picture on a serious theme. Thanks largely to the charm and skill of Florence Eldridge (offscreen, Mrs. Fredric March), it is also at times quite poignant. But, considering how well Michael Gordon directed Another Part of the Forest, this is a surprisingly uneven job; notably, Gordon squeezes much less than he might out of the buildup to the "mercy killing" itself. The picture is also disappointing because it dodges and neglects so much. The pros & cons of euthanasia are presented in the round; a distinction is made between moral and legal guilt; and something of the misery of deceit is shown.

But on the question of whether or not the wife should be told just what she faces, there is no evidence that anyone in front of the camera or behind it has heard of stoical, let alone Christian reasons, for telling and facing that kind of truth.

Every Girl Should Be Married (RKO Radio) describes the husband-hunting safari of a gawky young shop girl (Betsy Drake) who wants a husband to sit in a "big crunchee chair . . . so kind of pipee and bookee" beside the log fire (probably smokee). Her chosen prey is a morose baby specialist (Cary Grant). When he tries to escape, she lures him back toward the log fire by flirting with her boss (Franchot Tone). The boss is not skittish about marriage; he has tried it before. To knowing moviegoers, that sods him down. He stays in the running, all the same, until the ingenious huntress invents a third swain (Eddie Albert), meant to be a home-town admirer who yearns to take her away from it all. For a while, this invention staves off a trite ending, but can't prevent it. The chase ends with the proper man properly bagged.

Newcomer Betsy Drake seems to have studied, but not learned, the tricks and inflections of the early Hepburn. Her exaggerated grimaces supply only one solid laugh--when Hero Grant mimics them cruelly and accurately. In the past, Gary Grant has shown a talent for quietly underplaying comedy. In this picture, he has trouble finding comedy to play.

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