World War II must have come like manna from Heaven to Hollywood. Since the outbreak, that city has wallowed in a puddle of second-rate, money-making melodramas dealing directly or indirectly with the war. As is the case whenever the movies discover a new subject, the first few pictures were rather good, simply because they were a change from the regular Hollywood diet. But inevitably the change came; the plots became stereotyped, the characters lost originality, and all in all the pictures became the ordinary run-of-the-mill Hollywood corn.

"Confirm or Deny" is the perfect example of this corn, it has all t he ingredients. First of all, there is Don Ameche, who plays the role of a hardboiled American reporter in London during the great German air bombardment of September, 1940. He is all that Hollywood expects a foreign correspondent to be--which is more like a side-show barker than anything else. And although to some people his jowls and teeth make him look like a Walt Disney rabbit, especially when he smiles, he can probably be considered handsome in the bargain. Then there is Joan Bennett, who is horribly cast as a well-bred English girl, and who meets the Rabbit Man n --how did you guess it--a blackout. In addition there are numerous other stock characters, all of them nobly and courageously going about their jobs amid the bursting of bombs and the falling the shrapnel.

With characters such as these, it's not hard to figure out what the plot will be, though this one is slightly more absurd than the others. It involves Don Ameche's attempts to get around the British censor, to cable in the greatest story of his career--the invasion of England. In the great climax, just as the invasion is coming off, he finds himself trapped in a cellar with nothing but a beautiful girl, a time-bomb, and a teletype machine. The question is, what shall she do? Shall he lose the girl (who doesn't want him to do anything without first asking the censor) by sending the story without the censor's consent? Or shall he disappoint his boss and his much-talked-of ninety million readers by not sending it? You can get the answer to these vital questions b running up to the UT and buying a ticket. But if you're smart you'll save your money and find out from a friend.