Both the pictures at the Paramount and Fenway this week take place in the North Woods, the big outdoors, but this does not freshen them greatly. "Fifty Roads to Town", with Don Ameche and Ann Sothern, and "Silent Barriers", featuring Richard Arlen and Lilli Palmer, are the pictures; one is sophisticated adventure, the other raw meat. The first is strongly under the influence of "It Happened One Night", which was so good picture that its baleful shadow is still hanging over Hollywood.

It must be admitted that some of the dialogue is amusing, but too much of it partakes of the nature of this remark, which turns up in the midst of some supposedly sophisticated love-making: "Your feet are too big." The chief character turns out to be a cheat; he's not a gangster, but merely a charming fellow escaping from a subpoena as witness in a divorce. The climax of the plot is indicated by the fact that you catch on to this long before it's revealed, but this does not make the preliminary scene that fools you any less deceitful. Ann Sothern (the escaping heiress) is nice enough, we suppose, and so is Don Ameche, but the only really worthwhile acting is in the bit parts. And even these are typed on the old pattern.

"Silent Barriers" has to do with the struggle involved in pushing the tracks of the Canadian Pacific across the mountains of British Columbia. To show you that it is a real outdoor drama with lots of tough men in it, there are some emasculated versions of section gang argot, and an infinite amount of the players barking at each other. There is about the picture a certain inevitable gusto which attaches to any treatment of this sort of material, some genuinely thrilling mountain shots, and a plethora of weak women, outdoor men, and open spaces. Nonetheless, we were glad to come out into the real sunshine