The New Pictures

Three Little Pigs (Walt Disney) is the latest Silly Symphony in color. It shows two disgraceful pink porkers lazily building themselves shacks out of straw. A wolf blows their houses down. The lazy pigs have a more industrious brother who has just completed a brick mansion, in which he allows them to take refuge. When the wolf attempts to huff & puff this house down, he fails ignominiously. He then tries to climb down the chimney. The lazy pigs are alarmed. The industrious pig builds a roaring fire, singes the wolf's tail.

Two young men who like horses better than hogs were especially pleased by Three Little Pigs. The process that made the porkers pink was Technicolor and the two pleased young men were the cousins John Hay ("Jock") Whitney and Cornelius Vanderbilt ("Sonny") Whitney, who last week announced that they had bought a substantial share of Technicolor Motion Picture Corp. They also announced they were forming a production company. Pioneer Pictures, with Cousin Jock for president, to make feature-length colored films.

Color, a moot subject in Hollywood for the last 20 years, still engages the attention of cinema engineers though most major producers are skeptical about using it except on rare occasions. From du Pont and M. I. T. engineers is soon expected an announcement that may revolutionize color pictures. Whether or not Technicolor's "three-component"' method is sufficiently perfect to make as good pictures of real people as it does of cartoons, whether it will be sufficiently appealing to make up for its expense, are two of the questions which Hollywood will be glad to have answered by the Whitney investment. First Pioneer Picture will be made at RKO's Hollywood studios by Merian C. Cooper, distributed through RKO.

The Little Giant (First National) is a highly satisfactory sequel to many of Edward G. Robinson's earlier pictures. It shows him as a retired Chicago gangster, doing his best to lead a life of moneyed case at Santa Barbara. In retirement. Francis J. ("Bugs") Ahearn conceals the source of his wealth, promptly sets about joining what he thinks is the Santa Barbara bean monde. He becomes betrothed to an alluring blonde (Helen Vinson), learns enough polo to join a local team, buys a $600,000 share of her father's brokerage business, secures an immense mansion. complete with servants and secretary (Mary Astor) in which to entertain her friends. The members of the Cass family are congratulating themselves on having swindled a foolish parvenu when the admirer whom Polly Cass really likes shows them a copy of TIME, containing a picture of Bugs Ahearn and a story of his background under Crime. This document, a travesty on TIME, convinces the Casses they had best be rid of Bugs Ahearn. Simultaneously Bugs Ahearn learns that his new brokerage business is dishonestlv bankrupt, that his fiancee is unfaithful. He imports his entire Chicago staff, sells back the brokerage business with the aid of machine guns, gets engaged to his secretary, turns his private polo field into a playground for his gunmen. Briskly directed by Roy Del Ruth, all this makes a highly satisfactory addition to the Robinson series on racketeers at work and play, at home and abroad--a series which may eventually be regarded as the most interesting and most typical in the U. S. cinema of its period. Good shot: Bugs Ahearn trying desperately to hit a stationary polo ball.

Gold Diggers of 1933 (Warner). "We see clearly that overproduction of musical films is coming quickly ... as a result of the fact that 42nd Street has broken box office records: therefore, after Cold Diggers of 1933, we will produce no more musical feature-length pictures . . . until the imitative craze dies down. . . ." This smug bit of ballyhoo, by Major Albert Warner for Gold Diggers of 1933, would have sounded more sincere if Warner Brothers' current cinemusicomedy had been a less obvious copy of their earlier one. The casts--Ruby Keeler, Ginger Rogers, Dick Powell, Guy Kibbee, Ned Sparks--are similar. The narrative frameworks of both pictures--the inception and production of a Broadway show--are identical. This time the suspense is caused not by a chorus girl's big chance to be a star but by a mysterious young song writer (Dick Powell) in love with a dancer (Ruby Keeler 1. He turns out to be a rich Boston socialite. When his older brother (Wrarren William) and the family attorney (Kibbee) arrive to break up his romance, they stay to marry two of the dancer's friends. All this farcical to-do is interrupted from time to time by songs, which may well become as popular as the ones in 42nd Street, called "We're in the Money," "Petting in the Park," "I've Got to Sing a Torch Song," "Forgotten Men." Dance Director Busby Berkeley's most decorative notion was a "shadow waltz" with a chorus in triple-decked hoop skirts carrying phosphorescent violins. The stage presently darkens so that the violins appear to float about under their own power, finally waltz themselves into the outline of an immense bull fiddle. Good shot: Guy Kibbee's alarm when he looks in a mirror and detects a resemblance between his own face and that of a chorus girl's Pekinese, which he is holding under his arm. The Nuisance (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer). No actor in Hollywood is more adept than Lee Tracy at characterizations of likable rogues. This time he is an ambulance chasing shyster, aided by a dipsomaniac doctor (Frank Morgan) and a collapsible assistant named Floppy (Charles Butterworth) whose duty it is to fall down in front of moving vehicles without getting hurt. Everything goes well for Lawyer Stevens and his disreputable assistants until the traction company which is the chief victim of their frauds tries to retaliate by hiring a girl detective (Madge Evans). She falls in love with Stevens and he with her until he finds in her purse a check from the traction company's lawyer. To prevent her testifying against him, Stevens marries her. She goes to jail for perjury but not until she ha? convinced her husband of her loyalty to him. He gets her out by framing an automobile accident to involve the traction company's lawyer. Mr. Calhoun. Of all Lawyer Stevens' machinations, this one is the most expert. He has Floppy jump in front of the car, gets a blonde into the back seat while Lawyer Calhoun steps out to investigate, threatens a scandal unless Lawyer Calhoun helps him free Mrs. Stevens. Later he congratulates Floppy on his performance of holding the bumper with one hand while smearing his face with imitation blood as the car slows down. Says Floppy: ''I thought it was adequate." The Nuisance is not an important, not even a particularly original picture but in its genre it ranks higher than modest Floppy's opinion of his own specialty. Good shot: Lawyer Stevens arresting the motorman of a street car for speeding.

International House (Paramount). Planned a year ago as a parody of Grand Hotel, later rearranged as a starring vehicle for Peggy Hopkins Joyce, this picture emerges finally as a private spree for W. C. Fields. He is a completely demented aviator who, while trying to circumnavigate the globe in an autogiro which contains a small sedan in its fuselage, lands on the roof of a hotel in Wu

Hu, China, under the impression that it is Kansas City. ''You must be lost." says the hotel manager. ''I'm here." says Mr. Fields. "Kansas City is lost." At the Wu Hu International House a queer gathering has assembled to bid for the U. S. rights to a contraption called the radioscope, invented by a palsied Chinese. From time to time the inventor gives demonstrations of his machine: they show such radio folk as Rudy Vallee, Stoop-nagle & Budd, a wretched urchin called Baby Rose Marie performing their specialties. Miss Joyce is on hand looking, naturally, for a millionaire. A young employe of American Electric Co. (Stuart Erwin) is accused of having measles, causes the International House to be placed in quarantine. He finally manages to buy the rights to the radioscope, escape with his fiancee (Sari Maritza). Through all this rigmarole, W. C. Fields wanders with a frozen face, an unlighted cigar, an armful of bottles. He goes on a rampage among the wires of the hotel switchboard. which he scornfully describes as a "Chinese noodle-swamp." He insults the inventor, abuses Gracie Allen (who has a small role as nurse to the house doctor), drives his sedan down the fire escape, finally meanders off in his autogiro with Miss Joyce, whom he calls his little buttercup.

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