The current University bill be interesting not so much as a good program, for it is not, but as a case example in the progress of American movie subject matter. Along with a rather mediocre comedy, "We're On the Jury" (Victor Moore and Belen Broderick) and a first-rate "March of Time", there is "John Meado's Woman", with Edward Arnold and Francis Larrimore. It is this picture which is the case.

The film was undoubtedly planned around Edward Arnold, and he with his blunt skill does make Moade a convincing fellow, toying with the farm girl come to the big cit-tee. Uninspired and uninspiring as it always is nowadays, this plot might work itself out through a few scenes of drama, some (in this case good) comedy, and so on, to the final reconciliation. Francis Larrimore would be given her chance to show herself in her debut, and all would be quite regular, and very, very plain. As a matter of fact, "John Meade's Woman" does end with the necessary reconciliation, but not before many quite irregular things have happened.

Hollywood seldom attempts social drama, especially when that drama has to do with the raw meat of contemporary mass action; there is no reason why this picture should have stumbled into the things it does. John Meade, tycoon extraordinary, plays with natural resources as he does with the little country lass's heart--he is frank in his admission that his work is swindle by business technique, and he scorns to replant forests he devastates. When he shifts from lumber to wheat, he runs against a dust storm, the governor of the state who reminds him of his responsibility for the storm, and a farm movement led by the girl he has jilted. He is shot by a dispossessed farmer,--but not killed; he repents, and will, of course, live happily ever after, with the girl.

The handling of the sharp social problems involved is tentative, confused and utterly inconclusive; the producers merely give you the works, and let it go at that. There are some good shots, some good speeches, some feeling of social movement, but on the whole, the reflection is blurred. This, however, is not the point; "John Meade's Woman" is not a good picture in itself, but it does show the beginning of an awareness for a new type of material, and as such it is an omen.