After last week's unusually excellent bill, the Fine Arts Theatre this week lapses into mediocrity. The featured picture, Franz Lehar's operetta "Friederike," is a story centering about the love of Wolfgang von Goethe for the country lass Friederike. Though the music is delightful and the photography well above the average, the film suffers from the usual ill of operettas, an overdose of sentimentality. The love of Wolfgang and Friederike was not one of heroic proportions, and throughout one has the conviction that Goethe's career is more vital to him than Friederike's love, a belief which is incompstible with deep enjoyment of a romance. Mady Christians as the unfortunate heroine adds another to her imposing list of excellent performances.

The other half of the program is taken up by a very dull portrayal of what would probably happen if a great comet struck the earth.