The New Pictures

Roman Scandals (Samuel Goldwyn). When Eddie Cantor was a singing waiter in a Coney Island beer parlor, his comedy routine consisted of a song or two and a few jokes, original or stolen. Now that he is the highest-paid funnyman in the U. S. and a member of the Cinema Code Authority with President Emeritus Lowell of Harvard, his performances require such elaborate preparations that he can appear in only one a year. William Anthony McGuire, George S. Kaufman, Robert Sherwood, George Oppenheimer, Arthur Sheekman, Nat Perrin and Cantor himself collaborated on story or dialog for Roman Scandals. Several thousand showgirls received screen-tests for the chorus. The picture cost $1,100,000. The result is an extraordinary rigmarole containing everything from chariot races to a torch song by Ruth Etting.

Eddie (Cantor) is an eccentric grocer's boy in the U. S. town of West Rome who dreams that he is living in Imperial Rome. In a Cantor picture produced by Goldwyn, it is natural that Eddie should soon find himself in a slave market which, in addition to female slaves of all useful shapes, sizes and colors, contains Ruth Etting singing "No More Love." Befriended by young Josephus (David Manners) who is in love with the Princess Sylvia (Gloria Stuart), maltreated by noisome Emperor Valerius (Edward Arnold) whom the Empress (Veree Teasdale) wants to poison, Eddie has small time to enjoy the comforts of Rome. When he gets into the Emperor's bathroom, where more Goldwyn girls are lolling in as few clothes as possible, he has barely time to sing a song called "Keep Young and Beautiful" before he has to scamper off about his business. This is the unsteady job of being foodtaster to Valerius. The chariot race arrives when Eddie, in possession of a document which proves Valerius guilty of misappropriating public funds, sets off after Josephus and the Princess Sylvia, who are trying to escape to Ostia. Chariots belonging to Valerius pursue both parties, overtake Cantor on a winding road. Considerably more sophisticated than the dreamings of Alice in Wonderland, Eddie's luxurious fantasies end when he wakes and discovers that the document in his hand will serve practical purposes in West Rome. Roman Scandals is a characteristic successor to Whoopee and The Kid from Spain. Good shots: Eddie, when he knows that one is poisoned, trying to decide which of Valerius' two broiled nightingales to taste; guzzling an entire glass of Valerius' best wine to make absolutely sure there is no poison in it. Advice to the Lovelorn (Twentieth Century). Nathanael West, who wrote the novel from which this picture is remotely derived, had bad luck from the start. His book was published by Horace Liveright and might have been a best seller if the plates had not been confiscated by the printers when Liveright went bankrupt. When Darryl Zanuck bought Miss Lonelyhearts for the cinema, Author West had a right to expect something praiseworthy from his story of a neurotic newspaperman who, assigned to write a personal advice column, became involved with one of his pathetic correspondents and finally committed suicide. As now produced, with Lee Tracy* as the hero. Advice to the Lovelorn amounts to no more than one more farce-melodrama of the cityroom, in which the character of Toby Prentiss differs from the other seven reporters whom Tracy has impersonated only in minor details. The products of Twentieth Century Pictures Corp., however mediocre they may be in other respects, are usually distinguished by Zanuck "money touches." In this picture, which should have contained at least the implications of sardonic-tragedy, smash moments are few and far between.

*Cinemactor Tracy made this picture before going to Mexico City where he made news resulting in the cancellation of his contract by MGM. To TIME'S version of the affair (TIME, Dec. 4), Mr. Tracy telegraphed a correction as follows: "YOUR STORY ON MEXICO INCIDENT INACCURATE AND UNTRUE STOP MY REPUTATION HAS BEEN DAMAGED BY A FALSE CHARGE IN YOUR PUBLICATION STOP PUBLIC HAD BEEN GIVEN TRUE AND CORRECTED VERSION AND NOW YOUR LIBELOUS STORY OVERSHADOWS ALL PREVIOUS ONES STOP I REFER YOU TO LOS ANGELES TIMES OF DEC. 3 WHICH CLIMAXES ALL VERSIONS AND GIVES TRUE ONE OF WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED STOP WAS NEVER ORDERED ARRESTED STOP THERE WAS NO BALCONY AND I WAS IN A ROOM SEVEN STORIES FROM THE GROUND WITH AN IRON RAILING EXTENDING TO MY CHEST HEIGHT STOP YOUR LOCAL REPRESENTATIVE ACCEPTED HEARSAY EVIDENCE WHEN HE WIRED YOU I COMMITTED A NUISANCE STOP I WAS CLOTHED HAD NO BLANKET AROUND ME AND DID NOT COMMIT ANY NUISANCE EXCEPT YELL TO THE CROWD BELOW IN A CHIDING MANNER STOP"

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