It is not often that a picture comes along which manages both to amuse, and unobtrusively to make a point. Yet "The Male Animal," still fresh after a long battering on Broadway and the stage of summer stock, does it well. Carrying as props a raft of gorgeous co-eds and not-so-good-looking All Americans, the picture ranges from the last minute football thrills of a Frank Merriwell to the questionable propriety of Hot Garters, the other woman. Henry Fonda, the midwestern professor with a home life, ranks as a growing threat to Jimmy Stewart's laurels as the homespun American who rings true in the pinches.
The reading of Vanzetti's letter, omitted from the stage version, is much the highpoint of a fine evening. It is handled so subtly that it never disguises the true humor of the situation, and the audience does not forget that the same man who is talking for freedom played the very unacademic drunk. Olivia de Havilland leaves something to be desired as the professor's wife, but she still comes through in the clinches.
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