The New Pictures

The Dark Angel (Samuel Goldwyn) is a literate and tastefully arranged version of the celebrated sob-cinema in which Vilma Banky and Ronald Colman committed assault & battery on the emotions of the U. S. public in 1925. It is notable for the fine acting of its three attractive principals, a superior screen script and a climax which deserves a place on that roll of honor and profit which includes such classics as the life-preserver sequence in Cavalcade, the dance of the coffee rolls in The Gold Rush, the heroine's suicide in Anna Karenina.

Alan Trent (Fredric March), Kitty Vane (Merle Oberon) and Gerald Shannon (Herbert Marshall) grow up together in England in time to have their already complicated emotional patterns tangled further by the War. Alan and Kitty love each other. Gerald also loves Kitty. Consequently, when he suspects Alan of spending a night in less fastidiously chosen company just before they sail for France, he goes into a rage. The result of this "out there" is a dangerous assignment for Alan, from which he fails to return. When Gerald gets back to England, he learns that the girl with whom Alan spent the night was no ordinary wench but Kitty, in person, being gallantly informal. On the basis of remorse for this misunderstanding, Kitty and Gerald, both believing Alan dead, prepare to marry.

Alan has not been killed at the front, only blinded. Believing that this will make his life a burden rather than a joy to Kitty, he does not return to her. Instead, under an assumed name, he takes to writing juveniles, attended only by a secretary (Frieda Inescort) and his friend Sir George Barton (John Halliday). On the eve of their marriage, Kitty and Gerald learn of his existence. Still hell-bent on self-sacrifice, Alan arranges the furniture in the living room, hides his Braille books, awaits their call. When they arrive, he greets them soberly, pours a drink for each and, grimly pretending that he sees her perfectly, explains to Kitty that he no longer loves her. The great moment then arrives. '"Goodby," says Kitty, holding out her hand. Alan does not take it. Gerald, watching from the doorway, guesses why.

Peasants (Lenfilm) is the sequel to Chapayev and The Youth of Maxim in the cinema trilogy which won first prize at Moscow's Cinema Festival last spring. Like Chapayev, which dealt with an incident in the early days of the Russian Revolution, and The Youth of Maxim, which was concerned with the first serious labor disturbances in Tsarist factories, Peasants takes collective farming as its theme, consciously makes of it an advertisement rather than a drama. Like its two predecessors, however, it is an advertisement so forcefully constructed and so intelligently presented, that, even for U. S. audiences who cannot understand the issues involved and would be unsympathetic if they could, it almost amounts to entertainment.

The principal figures in Peasants are Nikolai, the local Commissar; a melancholy and vindictive young kulak named Gerasim, who hopes to see the farming experiment break down; and Gerasim's wife, whom he beats to death in a quarrel over whether their unborn child shall be raised in the old order or as a Communist. The narrative, moving with that deliberation which, because of its contrast with Hollywood's staccato methods, inevitably gives all Russian films a false appearance of pretentiousness, describes Gerasim's attempt to disguise his wife's death as a suicide for political reasons, his efforts to inflame her brother into trying to kill the Commissar and the Commissar's eventual victory, which means the triumph of collective farming. The actors, mostly Honored Artists of the Republic with names that mean nothing to U. S. cinemaddicts, are excellent. The director is Friedrich Ermler. president of the All-Union Motion Picture Directors & Actors Association.

When he visited the U. S. last spring. Director Ermler drove Hollywood producers & directors frantic with jealousy by explaining that Peasants, like most important Soviet films, was assured of distribution in 32,000 Russian theatres before production started, that it was expected to gross $20,000,000 this year, and that he expected to receive 2 1/2% of the gross. Good shot: a village elder (Vladimir Gar din) having his long white beard cut off to symbolize enthusiasm for the new regime.

Two for Tonight (Paramount) includes Joan Bennett, two good songs (Without a Word of Warning, I Wish I Were Aladdin) by Gordon & Revel, good light comedy acting and crooning by Bing Crosby, and a pleasant performance as a scatterbrained butler by Ernest Cossart. The story, concerning the three erratic sons of a lady whose attitude toward her offspring is accurately indicated when she orders one of them to.turn out a musical comedy script in seven days, must have sounded funnier on paper than it does on the screen. Good shot: Crosby singing to impress a theatrical producer who is deaf.

The Gay Deception (Twentieth Century-Fox) is a good example of Hollywood's ability to squeeze genuine entertainment out of the most banal material. A stenographer (Frances Dee) wins $5,000 in a lottery. Disregarding the fatherly advice of the village banker to invest it and be sure of $3.25 a week for life, she hurries to New York, hires the Peachbloom Suite at the Walsdorf-Plaza for a month's spree. Bellboy No. 14 (Francis Lederer) at that hotel turns out to be the Crown Prince of a mythical kingdom, in Manhattan to study the hotel business at first hand. The great ball scene, without which no Cinderella picture would be complete, is given a slightly different twist when a hysterical waiter discovers his own shirt and diamond stud on the bosom of Prince Sandro, pretending for once to be himself.

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