The New Pictures

Vogues of 1938 (Walter Wanger) can be chalked up as a minor Hollywood triumph on two counts: 1) it is the most enticing example of Technicolor yet produced; 2) it has apparently found a formula for transforming the fashion show from a boring newsreel short to a full-length revue that both men and women can sit through without squirming. Incidentally it not only glorifies the U. S. girl (its showgirls include such well-known models as Jaeckel's Betty Wyman, Lucky Strike's and Chesterfield's Ida Vollmar) and U. S. fashions but implies that a couturier may indeed be a forceful masculine fellow. The cinemadequate plot and up-to-date dialog are the expert work of Samuel and Bella Spewack (Boy Meets Girl).

George Curson (Warner Baxter), third-generation head of the House of Curson, swank Manhattan dress-shop, is busy whipping up a little bridal number for Wendy van Klettering's (Joan Bennett) imminent wedding, when the bride-to-be floors him by imploring him to scotch the wedding by sabotaging the dress. Aristocratic but penniless Wendy, it appears, is well aware she is being sold down the river, regards her rich fiance, Mr. Morgan (Alan Mowbray) as a blight. Curson, a married man himself, very properly pays no attention to Wendy's pleas, delivers the dress on time. Thereupon Wendy leaves the bridegroom waiting at the church, goes to work for Curson as a model.

Further skittish developments include sequences in which Morgan, hell-bent on revenge, tries to enjoin Wendy from appearing in Curson's dress show; a ballroom scene where Wendy wins the prize with a Curson creation, having effectively removed her nearest rival by unraveling her dress; a grand finale in which Curson, using the sets from his wife's bankrupt stage show, puts on a musical dress revue which snatches his own business from disaster's verge.

The women of Hollywood have, by and large, never dressed for each other or for men, but for the camera, which makes more extravagant demands than either. Result is that many a smart cinemagoer is as likely as not to snigger at the West Coast's idea of haute couture. The greater credit, therefore, to producer Walter Wanger that in building a show on women's styles, he managed to make the styles sufficiently sound to be featured in a recent issue of Vogue magazine. Taking their cue from those unsung, expert, wholesale dress manufacturers of Manhattan's 7th Avenue who were asked last winter to guess what women would be wearing this fall, Hollywood designers Omar (ne Alexander) Kiam, Irene and Helen Taylor turned out most of the dresses, gowns and coats for Vogues of 1938. Manhattan's supersmart John-Frederics and Sally Victor did the hats, Jaeckel the furs. Through the Modern Merchandising Bureau, 52 dresses, 24 hats and various accessories shown in the picture will be on sale in first-class U. S. department stores in the next few weeks.

Gangway (Gaumont-British) is the third British musical in little more than a year to tackle the task of making Jessie Matthews as popular in the U. S. as she is in England. A slavish imitation of the current Hollywood musical comedy formula, Gangway sometimes comes close to clicking, gives one more indication that British cinema can as yet boast few native screen writers within trailing distance of Hollywood's best, but that British producers are still trying to pick up the trail.

Pat Wayne (Jessie Matthews), assistant cinema critic on a Fleet Street paper, is assigned to cover the movements of a U. S. film star (Olive Blakeney) whom Scotland Yard suspects of being an international jewel thief. Pat, determined to dog her quarry to earth's end, signs on as the actress's maid, quickly gets into difficulties which result in her hiding in a trunk. Next thing she knows she is aboard a liner which is returning the cinemactress to the U. S. Also aboard is a young detective (Barry Mackay) and a U. S. gangster (Nat Pendleton), both of whom mistake Pat for the thief. The gangster has orders from the Big Fellow in Manhattan to deliver Pat as a willy-nilly ally. No sooner has the boat docked than Pat is hurried away by gangsters, told she must do a decoy dance that night when a Mrs. Van Tuyl, wearing a load of diamonds, shows up at the night club. When the time comes Pat does her enforced bit up to a point, then suddenly covers the crooks with confusion and limelight as they close in around the sparkling neck and bosom of Mrs. Van Tuyl (Doris Rogers).

Jessie Matthews does her scampering best throughout this gallimaufry, manages to appear at times an appealing if toothy bit of cockney femininity. What gives Gangway a slightly embarrassing quality is the earnest brightness with which its British characters mimic American parts of speech. Though they are almost letter-perfect and have obviously been coached within an inch of their larynx, their "yeahs" and "flatfoots" and "old battle-axes" induce on the U. S. ear the same faint note of horror as a child's unmeaning blasphemy or an innocent lady's use of an unprintable word.

Broadway Melody of 1938 (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer). Mrs. Caroline Whipple (Binnie Barnes), wife of a confection tycoon, owns a horse named Star Gazer, beloved by Sally Lee (Eleanor Powell) whose father bred him. With the horse, Manhattan-bound in a stockcar, Horsetrainers Sonny (George Murphy) and Peter (Buddy Ebsen) find Sally tucked up in the feed. A Manhattan playwright, Steve Raleigh (Robert Taylor), whose show Caroline is backing, finances Sally's auction bid for Star Gazer, tries to cast her as his leading lady. Jealous, Caroline withdraws her backing. At this point only juvenile or feeble-minded members of the audience will fail to perceive that, if the show is to have a conclusion, Star Gazer must win the $25,000 handicap.

No doubt it is partly the glitter of its memorable predecessors that dulls this version of MGM's big annual musical. Unhappily and obviously, another reason is the remembered rather than memorable elements in its story: the routine of a leading character leaving home to follow a horse, first used in Broadway Bill (Columbia, 1934); the George Murphy-Eleanor Powell dance in Central Park, the interrupting rainstorm and their going into a pavilion for shelter, all copied almost without change from Top Hat (RKO, 1935); finally, the curious parallel between Star Gazer's reaction to Charles Igor Gorin singing Figaro and the behavior of a trotter named Cupid in David Harum (Fox, 1934) who won his races when Will Rogers caroled Ta-rah-rah-boom-de-ay. Broadway Melody of 1938 is the first picture in which Miss Powell has had a dancing partner; she performs with George Murphy an Astaire and Rogerish number, I'm Feeling Like a Million, which is good but not as good as Astaire and Rogers. Apparently for lack of other hit material the tap finale is rounded out with tunes from the original and second Broadway Melodies. These are still excellent.

Confession (Warner Bros.). A onetime gay Polish opera diva, Vera (Kay Francis) is so bereft when her husband Leonide. a nice fattish army officer (Ian Hunter), goes away to the War that she drinks too much at a wild Warsaw party given by her old trouper friends, passes out in the arms of Michael Michailow (Basil Rathbone), a melancholy musician perennially bent on seduction. When Leonide finds Vera in Michailow's apartment he jumps heavily at the worst conclusion, promptly divorces her and takes her baby daughter. Years later Daughter Lisa (Jane Bryan), fatherless now and unaware that Vera is her mother, is escorted into a cabaret one night by villainous Michailow. There Vera, who wears a blonde wig and works as an entertainer, spies them. With her maternal instincts at boiling point, she seizes a handy revolver, riddles Michailow with steely questions. At the trial, determined not to let Lisa know who she is, she keeps nobly mum. In view of the mess Vera has landed herself in, the ending is very, very happy.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.