The fourth largest industry in America has long treasured the erroneous idea that George Bancroft is a "mighty star." Years ago he appeared with Evelyn Brent in a thing called "Underworld" which was undeniably good, but that was a long time ago. Since then he has shouldered his way along, smashing chairs, threatening women, killing men with his fists, breaking banks, and appearing in movies with such robust titles as "The Wolf of Wall Street." He has become very much of a ham actor. In his last work, hailed as a mighty picture by a mighty star, the producers have made the punishment fit the crime. "Rich Man's Folly", now at the University, is a thoroughly bad picture.

The story is too chaotic, too long, too inconclusive to tell here. Briefly, it has to do with a master ship builder who yearns for an heir to carry on the great work of six generations of Trumbulls. The heir comes, a precocious, spindle legged little child who dies because his father forced him along too fast. The elder Trumbull becomes embittered, loses his grip, and meets disaster upon disaster, until at the end his despised daughter guides him into the paths of truth. This is the sort of thing that can be, and has been, done well, but never by the movies. It requires a delicacy of touch, a sympathy of treatment which Hollywood has seldom acquired. For the movies a character is all wool, or he is the worst shoddy that ever was carted through mill door. Bancroft disregards any opportunities the directors might give him. He bellows, he swaggers, he is the usual rugged George gone amuck.

The direction is utterly puerlle and lacking in delicacy. There are scenes of Mr. Bancroft bellowing a prayer to heaven in the pouring rain upon the death of his son, there is a long scene of his wife dying in child birth, there are innumerable maudlin, sentimental shots which have no place in any picture and when laid on with the trowel of Mr. Bancroft they become unthinkable.

The second picture, "Ladies About Town," is excellent comedy. Lillian Tashman and Kay Francis are slick, svelte, and most acceptable as a pair of New York gold diggers. They are the best dressed women in Hollywood, and they appear in a vehicle that gives them every chance.