The New Pictures

Diane (M-G-M). Diane de Poitiers (1499-1566) was one of the greatest of Frenchwomen. "She animated a century," says a French biographer. "She created a style." A woman of rare beauty, she was the mistress of a king (Henry II) 20 years her junior, and held his love until he died. In a day when woman's place was in the home, she ruled France well and wisely for more than a decade (1547-59). A patroness of the arts, she was the muse of Jean Goujon, whose finest statue is a portrait of Diane as Diana, and of Ronsard, who wrote for her some of his best-loved lines.

No wonder, with such a large and subtle character to draw, that the studio hired a gifted novelist, Christopher Isherwood, to write the script for this picture. No wonder that expense was damned in the effort to make settings splendid and costumes rich, and all authentic to the period in the least detail. By all that literary art and cinematic craft could do, the way was prepared for the heroine of history, and suddenly, in a sputter of high heels and a clatter of false eyelashes, she arrives on the scene--the most cultivated woman of the French Renaissance: Lana Turner.

Some even more improbable things happen--among them Roger Moore, who as Henry II invariably wears the expression of a peevish raisin. For a time, the spectator is able to identify himself with the plight of Henry, who is said to be in mortal danger from a frightful bore. As things turn out, the script is not referring to Lana--just some wild pig. So the boar gores, but the gore bores, and the only consolation is offered by Sir Cedric Hardwicke, who is all dressed up like a wizard and looks sorry he did it, even for all that money. "What will be," says Sir Cedric mysteriously, "will be."

It's a Dog's Life (MGM) is what the wise guys are calling "a bow-wow wow" of a motion picture. Based on The Bar Sinister, a famous dog story by Richard Harding Davis, it is in fact as nice to have around as any bright young pup, and though it officially belongs to children, their parents will undoubtedly be giving it a run when the young ones are in bed. The hero of this waggish tale is a pit bull, called Wildfire in the film as in the life, who looks like a mournfully overgrown white mouse, and will certainly win all hearts with his chewed ears, string tail and general stigmata of mutt.

Wildfire is the result of something that should not have happened between a champion bull terrier and a certain lowborn bitch who made her living on the streets, and the picture tells how his worth overcame his birth. Put to the pits by a greedy master (Jeff Richards), Wildfire fights his way to the championship of the Bowery before he is overmatched with a bigger dog, and left on the floor half dead. A kindly groom (Edmund Gwenn) takes him home to a rich man's stables, and thereafter, in due process of fate, the wharf rat whips his haughty old man at the big dog show, redeems his poor old mother from poverty and disgrace, and finds romance with the richest female in town. A dog's life? Maybe not, but it's a thoroughly entertaining one, and moviegoers of whatever age will not be inclined to look such a good-natured gift dog in the mouth.

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