Advertisement

MOVIEGOER

Coming to the Met

This is more in the way of forewarning that "George Washington Slept Here" will either send you in the aisles or up them, for this Jack Benny-Ann Sheridan slapstick does not start its run at the Met until tomorrow. It made the rounds on Broadway during the Christmas vacation and has since played the neighborhood circuit around New York.

If you feel like roaring at city-bred Benny and staring at well-built Ann Sheridan; his antique-loving wife, if you can stand several lengthy reels of people falling through roofs and down wells, go over and get a jump on those blue books blues. But if you regard slapstick as pure corn, and rug-eating dogs and thunderstorms in rickety houses as just too far-fetched, don't bother yourself with this feature.

The plot is wholesomely simple with Ann buying a collection of antiques including a ramshackle house where George Washington was said to have spent a night. Relations with a crotchety neighbor, a fraud of a rich uncle, are the stronger parts of the picture; and a slow-witted caretaker steals scenes from even the veteran lead. The tolerating Benny finally pays for putting the house shipshape, only to have the mortgage fall due. A sort of divinely arranged solution turns up quite timely and everybody goes off sufficiently happy. It kind of leaves the audience on the loose end of things though.

Advertisement
Advertisement