In troublous times like these, with the undergraduate beset on one hand with his own scholastic woes, both present and in the near future, and with those of his family and the falling market on the other, a little light divertissement is well in order. Such is to be found at the Metropolitan this week, where Ruth Chatterton holds forth in "The Rich Are Always With Us," (an optimistic title, forsooth), and where La Montemegro and others provide a far better than usual stage show.

Chatterton, whose acknowledged forte is registering the anguish of a broken heart, goes through strangely little mental suffering in her current opus, a light comedy so-called, in which she is ably supported by one George Brent. The whole picture though tenuous, is well written, almost always amusing and is excellently played throughout. Dealing as it does with the light whims and vanities of a super-glided Park Avenue aristocracy it could hardly be shown to an audience of unemployed steel workers in Pittsburg without precipitating the downfall of the capitalistic classes, but to those who take the Hollywood conception of high life in Paris and New York with tongue in cheek, the picture will be an amusing if not an uplifting experience. Ruth Chatterton, suave as usual, is utterly and almost disconcertingly competent. Her leading man, the aforementioned Brent, provides a background of quiet humor and not a little charm, and gives a performance more polished than the inveterate movie goer is accustomed to see in this day and age.

In the stage show the Metropolitan has gone Ziegfeld with a vengeance. There are of course the Boswell sisters, and Conchita Montenegro, both alluring in their own particular ways, two or three other good acts, and a grand tableau of thirty glorified girls in half-piece bathing suits gamboling in a Louis XIV fountain while colored lights play and the orchestra hits a feverish crescendo. What more do you want for sixty cents.