The New Pictures

Harry Black and the Tiger (20th Century-Fox). If tigers had actors' agents, this movie might have kicked up a squabble along producers' row. The tiger so clearly deserves top billing. While all the two-legged characters wade around uncertainly in one another's shallow psyches, the purposeful tabby chews up half the population of India (although only two on-camera) and chops Actor Stewart Granger to bits. Prowling through the hill country of southern India, Cameraman Harry Gillan has brought back some startling footage on a real cool cat.

Unfortunately, there are a few squares loitering in the tall grass. Actor Granger strides up answering to the name of Harry Black, a famed hunter hired by the government to dispatch the tiger. He quickly corners the beast and is squeezing his finger on the trigger when a Land Rover roars by and scares it away. Drat! To make matters worse, behind the wheel of the Rover is an old war buddy (Anthony Steel), whom Harry Black treats with untropical coolness. After a couple of flashbacks, the viewer learns why: not only did Steel's cowardice in the war cost Granger a portion of his leg, but the intrepid hunter has long since caught the scent of Steel's wife (Barbara Rush).

Things soon grow as steamy outside the jungle as in it. Steel's bungling during the next hunt gets Harry mangled by the no-nonsense tiger, but leads to a long recuperation during which Granger and Actress Rush eye each other at length. As soon as he is strong enough to stand up, they both lie down, and the sanctity of the home makes its uneasy return only instants before the film's end. As Harry, Swashbuckler Granger reads his lines as they were written, which is a serious disservice to the writer.

Onionhead (Warner) is Andy Griffith, who buckled the nation at the midriff as the corn-pone Army private in No Time for Sergeants. This time Hollywood has cast Able Comedian Griffith as a cook's assistant in the Coast Guard, and served him up on a script about as funny as an eyeful of bilge water.

Hero Griffith earns his nickname when he shaves his skull egg-bald in hopes of growing thicker hair. When not engaged in scalping himself, he bangs pans by day and bumblefoots around the local talent (Felicia Farr) by night, but hits stormy weather on both fronts. His chief cook (Walter Matthau), a sardonic old coot with a mania for cinnamon rolls, marries the girl. Then Cookie ships out for convoy duty, and Griffith finds himself heating up both the gal and the gallery.

By this time the picture has stumbled along for i^ hours, and the moment has come for it to fall flat on its face. Griffith renounces adultery, plans to marry the girl from back home, helps his ship subdue a German sub, and exposes a crooked executive officer, all at flank speed. Director Norman Taurog, whose recent efforts have been largely limited to Martin and Lewis comedies, heaves enough whisky-pourings to float the Coast Guard for a week, but viewers may find some of his other humorous inventions less familiar. He seems to think it is laugh-provoking to throw in a scene with Actress Farr tearfully explaining that the reason she cheats on her husband is that she is trying to find "real love," having been frigid all her life.

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