The New Pictures

Where Danger Lives (RKO Radio) gives movie audiences, at long last, a chance to see highly publicized Faith Domergue, latest graduate of the Howard Hughes straining-bodice school of dramatic art. Hughes discovered Faith in 1941, put her into a strenuous training program for stardom. Like Jane Russell, another Hughes discovery whom she somewhat resembles, Faith bloomed unseen except in leg and torso art poses. Her first film, Vendetta, has been awaiting release since 1947.

The movie that now breaks the suspense is a chase-melodrama with little suspense of its own. Faith plays a passionate hussy who gets her hooks into a remarkably gullible physician (Robert Mitchum). She involves him in a drunken brawl that kills her husband (Claude Rains), then prods him into fleeing with her across the Mexican border. Dazed by a concussion, Dr. Mitchum goes on compounding the crime long after it becomes obvious that Faith is a fugitive from a psychiatrist's couch.

Director John Farrow works in some photogenic backgrounds of the couple's flight through Southern California. But his script and star deprive the movie of credibility. Actress Domergue smolders and storms like an overheated Theda Bara, gets some ludicrous lines to read (and gives them the delivery they warrant), builds up fast to an overpowering impression that she has done her best work in publicity stills.

For Heaven's Sake (20th Century-Fox] is a tasteless whimsy unworthy of Scripter-Director George (Miracle on 34th Street) Seaton, who bolted it together out of a deservedly unproduced play by Harry (Here Comes Mr. Jordan) Segall. It concerns two angels (Clifton Webb and Edmund Gwenn) who are sent on an earthly mission to inspire procreation by a selfishly childless theatrical couple (Joan Bennett and Robert Cummings).

According to Seaton-Segall biology, unborn children are little angelic sprites who haunt the premises of their parents-to-be, wistfully awaiting their entrance into a solid world where they can taste ice cream. While Gigi Perreau thus languishes to be conceived, she gives tips to the angels on how to further the project. Angel Webb, a vain, sarcastic know-it-all, then materializes into the couple's life, hatches aphrodisiacal schemes and almost loses his angelic franchise when confronted with temptations of the flesh (Joan Blondell).

Some vagrant amusement is provided by Actor Webb's impersonation of a strong, silent westerner patterned after Gary Cooper, and by Jack La Rue's bit as a movie star who fancies himself the living model of the tough, coin-flipping gangster he plays on the screen. They do nothing to repair the picture's ingrained faults. As Director Seaton himself demonstrated in Miracle on 34th Street, the supernatural elements of a fantasy are best played off against the familiar realities of an everyday world. Instead, the coy hocus-pocus of For Heaven's Sake takes place in the never-never land of Hollywood farce.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.