Those of you who have been plodding faithfully to all the recent run of Dietrich-Von Sternberg films only to glimpse the abundant beauties of the actress and have been gratified in that and in nothing else, have a tinkling, silver treat in store for you. "Desire" gives you a Dietrich as beautiful as ever. But the vehicle itself, being an artistic achievement of the first order, delights by its own shimmering sophistication and gives Marlene, and Gary Cooper too, a splendid opportunity to set.

Until this performance in "Desire" the Blond Venus has given the critics ample justification for their claim that she was merely a handsome woman who ran into all sorts of scrapes and took them all with the same dull look of languorous rapidity. To the mind of Josef von Sternberg, the dead pan was a panacea. But Dietrich under the new regime of Frank Bozarge is free to act, and she dispels with a flash all doubts as to whether she can.

Most pleasantly surprising, perhaps, is to see Marlene's ability with comedy. She no longer stoops to conquer with her legs, but none the less her dignity in this picture is dropped from the grand tragedienne level. Comedy is throughout the sustaining force. From the point at the beginning where Adventuress Dietrich bumps together the heads of a jeweller and a psychiatrist, in order to get away with a gorgeous string of stolen pearls, to the point at the end where those same two dupes are joyful witnesses at the wedding, the atmosphere is charged with worldly, debonair mirth. But don't get the idea that there's anything namby-pamby or arty about this picture. Gary Cooper is a sturdy automobile engineer from Detroit, a man of strong passions and few words. And although the picture takes several delightful dips into the risque, yet it is so daringly virtuous in the long run as to make Gary Cooper turn the audacious jewel theft into a penitent and completely reformed wife.

On the stage the Brown Man shows the White Man how his jazz-age amusement should be done. Louis Armstrong, the King of Swing, sounds too much as if he had a sore throat, but he is amply redeemed by his orchestra. And the rest of the sepia troupe, notably the Mills Brothers, are most exhilarating indeed. Up and away to the Metropolitan; the show this week is first-rate stuff.