The New Pictures

Appointment in Honduras (RKO Radio) is a problem picture. The problem: if Ann Sheridan, with nothing on her back but some translucent yellow nightclothes, is abandoned in a Central American jungle with six hot-blooded men, can the material sustain the stress of the situation?

One of the six, it is true, is Ann's husband (Zachary Scott), but he is a weakling, and probably couldn't even uphold her shoulder strap in an argument. Four others, escaped convicts, are led by a hard-breathing type (Rodolfo Acosta) whose fondness for silk has nothing to do with its denier. Only the sixth man (Glenn Ford) can keep him from fingering the stuff, because only Ford knows the way through the jungle to safety from the agents of a revolutionary junta who are dashing in pursuit.

Day after day the six men and a girl wander through what is palpably the largest number of potted palms ever assembled on one set. Thorns slash at Ann's nightie, a puma snaps at it, a colony of ants almost eats it off her back one night, even a crocodile comes up for a nibble. However, just as Actress Sheridan seems about to violate the Production Code, up steps Actor Ford to offer her his shirt and a spare pair of pants.

Up to that point, the picture has at least the charm of a kind of exotic silliness--rather like finding the underwear section of the Sears Roebuck catalogue floating gravely along the upper Orinoco.

Genevieve (Rank; Universal-International) comes under the heading of Very Special Jokes--even among the British, who made it. It may thus be assumed that the large U.S. movie public, which dislikes esoteric humor and is leary of many British brands, is not going to laugh itself hoarse at this one. But to some, e.g., the sort of people who understand that the passion for antiques is a bit silly but go on collecting them anyway. Genevieve will come as an irresistible little piece of comic bric-a-brac.

The subject of the film is the annual Commemoration Run, from London to Brighton, of the British Veteran Car Club. The heroine is an alizarin-crimson 1904 Darracq named Genevieve, the hero an anonymous cadmium-yellow 1904 Spyker. The Darracq is the proud possession of a young man of moderate means (John Gregson). His wife (Dinah Sheridan) just goes along grimly for the ride. The Spyker belongs to a friend named Ambrose (Kenneth More), a frisky youth whose ambition it is "to combine the pleasures of the London-Brighton run with a really beautiful emotional experience."

For this purpose, Actor More invites on the spin a flashy young brunette (Kay Kendell) who. after a number of frantic breakdowns ("Better try a new flint!" hollers a passing motorist), begins some calculated conversation with Gregson's wife. "All Ambrose seems to think about are that silly old car and the other thing." The wife answers bleakly, "My husband only thinks of the car."

In Brighton at last, while watching More crank up to a seduction scene with his girl, the husband begins to wonder darkly, "What happened on the '49 run?" when his wife, before they were married, made the trip in the yellow Spyker. His discontent takes the form of a belligerent insistence that his car is better than the other, and the two soon rooster each other into a race back to London, with the rash sum of -L-100 riding on the outcome.

The race, a fine series of crosses and doublecrosses, is laughable right down to the finish line. All the main parts are played with expert pace and restraint, but the real stars of the show remain the fossil vehicles, as wild a sight on a modern highway as a pterodactyl in a bird bath.

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