The New Pictures

Bachelor's Affairs (Fox). Given the title of this picture and its motivating situation--a middle-aged gentleman fatigued by his young wife--you would doubtless be prepared to supply an outline of its plot. The outline would be accurate. The young wife has a mercenary sister. The husband has a wealthy friend to whose country estate he pays a visit. Another visitor is a young architect who likes to dance. When the wife and sister arrive, the architect and the wife carry on and are soon arrested for embracing each other on a public highway. This gives the husband a chance to give his wife a divorce and marry his charming secretary whose tastes in amusement are less taxing. The only surprise in the film is an easy spontaneity which makes it definitely amusing.

The husband is Adolphe Menjou, sleek veteran of a thousand mannered comedies. He knows how to express utter satisfaction, when he learns of his wife's defections, by nibbling on an apple core. She, Joan Marsh, has an extraordinary petulance. When asked if there is anything in the world she really likes, she replies: "Yes. The roller-coaster at Coney Island."

The Man From Yesterday (Paramount). Like Bachelor's Affairs, this picture has a familiar plot but it has no spontaneity. It is a compendium of old stories about the War and Enoch Arden. Clive Brook and Claudette Colbert act it as though they were in a trance and if you enter the theatre in the middle of the picture you half expect them to wake up suddenly and discover that they have just been dreaming. Nothing of the sort occurs. Clive Brook is a British officer. Presently he is reported dead. Miss Colbert is his wife. She bears him a son and, thinking she is a widow, is on the point of marrying a French surgeon (Charles Boyer) when she bumps into her husband at a Swiss health resort. He has developed a hacking cough and a rude way with waiters. Miss Colbert here insists on going back to Clive Brook. But when he finds that she really loves the surgeon, Brook goes off to a cafe, drinks himself to death on highballs. Sample dialog: A lady who sees Brook in the cafe saying, "Did you see that man's expression? Ooh! It frightened me."

The Washington Show (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer). Since MGM's Louis B. Mayer has spent weekends at the White House and was a California delegate to last fortnight's Republican convention (TIME, June 27), it was natural that his company should contribute promptly to the current cycle of political pictures. This one gives Lionel Barrymore a spacious and declamatory role, the sort that suits him best. It is not to be confused with Washington Merry-Go-Round, which Columbia will presently release, although it contains a shot of a carrousel against the background of the Capitol. It is an adaptation by John Meehan and Samuel Blythe of Author Henri Bernstein's play The Claw. To give the plot pertinence in a presidential year, the scene is Washington instead of Paris, but Lionel Barrymore's role is the one he had in the play. He is Jefferson Keane, an eloquent and stubborn lawyer who gets himself into the Senate by bucking machine politics in Kansas.

Barrymore has been on the point of death in several recent pictures; it is his gruff demise which makes the end of this picture interesting. He is married to a Washington socialite (Karen Morley) who is extravagant and indiscreet. A public utilities lobbyist (C. Henry Gordon; finally forces him to retire from politics to save her reputation. Presently there is an investigation into Barrymore 's political maneuvers. He learns about his wife's in fidelity in time to expose the machinations of the utilities interests, dies of a broken heart. Good sound : applause and mutterings in the gallery of the Senate after Jefferson Keane's maiden speech.

Since the arrival of talkies, most of Hollywood's new female celebrities have been imported either from the Manhattan stage or from European cinema. Not so Karen Morley. Christened Mabel Linton in Ottumwa, Iowa, she went to Los Angeles when she was 13, attended Holly wood High School. After her sophomore year at the University of California at Los Angeles she joined the Pasadena Com munity Playhouse. When Director Clarence Brown was casting male actors for Inspiration, he asked Karen Morley, hired as an extra, to read Greta Garbo's lines. She did it well enough to get a screen test, a part in Inspiration, a long-term contract. Now approximately 22, Cinemactress Mor ley is 5 ft. 4 in., 104 lb., hazel-eyed. Her mouth is too big, her nose too sharp, but she has a gay face and clever notions about how to act. Cinemactress Morley's description of herself: "I'm naturally a lazy person. ... I certainly never fooled myself into believing that I was any raving beauty. ... I don't like to do anything unless I can do it well. . . ."

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