Since "New York Town" is given top billing at the U.T., the supposition is that it's the better of the two current attractions there. But as a matter of fact, neither picture is any better or any worse than the other, though they're at different poles so far as subject matter goes. There's certainly nothing exceptionally new about the plot of "New York Town," but it manages, through competent acting and a much more mature directorial touch than most Hollywood pictures have shown of late, to move right along without too many slow passages. It's nothing, really, but boy meets girl, etc., except that this time the boy is a poor but happy sidewalk photographer, and he has a couple of poor but happy friends. These poor but happy friends are the best thing in the picture, and it is they who save it from being slow and second-rate. Akim Tamiroff is a Russian waiting for his citizenship papers, and Lee Tracy is a legless beggar who seems to enjoy pushing himself around underfoot on a little roller-skate wagon. Mary Martin and Fred MacMurray are perfectly adequate in their roles, which demand neither a minimum nor a maximum of acting ability.

"The Parson of Panamint" is an attempt to put Charlie Ruggles in a character role. This isn't the old Charlie you used to know: he has thrown away his delayed response and his bewildered expression, and emerges as a philosophical sort of fellow, the hero of the picture. Panamint is a town (not a chewing gum), and Mr. Ruggles is its boss (not its parson). Though it starts rather slowly, with a gloomy sort of flashback, it soon gets moving and hits a quick and gripping pace at the end.