Movie magazines have been aghast for the past month or so over the advertisements for "Lady in the Dark,"--the first ones in which Ginger Rogers has allowed her rather muscular legs to be shown to the non-paying public. But the movie itself, despite the lure of Miss Rogers' technicolor outfit and the legs, does not have nearly the punch which was supplied by the stage play of the same name.

"Lady in the Dark" is a complex job, as was the show, which required a revolving stage, and parts of it are worth the price of admission. The technicolor is gorgeous, and the setting impressive, making the whole movie a gorgeous spectacle. It has many of the bits that made the Moss Hart production the hit of 1941, but it doesn't go over entirely; and it's hard to place the blame.

First of all, Ginger Rogers while a fine actress, is no Gertrude Lawrence, and certainly cannot put over a song the way she could. The "Saga of Jenny," one of the most amusing songs over to be sung in a movie, is still good, but it doesn't make the hit it did when Gerty sang it.

Another thing that is a great deal more apparent today than it was in 1941 is the flimsiness of the entire subject. It is conceivable that a woman with no worries, troubles, or difficulties of any sort might be terribly unhappy, but to waste all that scenery and celluloid on it seems ridiculous today when the world seems to have been soaked through with paranoia.

But even without the comparisons with the outside world, "Lady in the Dark" would not fit as a mature study of the psychosis of the American career woman. The topic is not frivolously handled, but the contrasts between "she got herself a husband but he wasn't hers" and the terror of psychiatric difficulties reduce a great deal of the picture to the level of the ludicrous.

The help which Miss Rogers received from Ray Milland, Walter Baxter, and Jon Hall cannot rate with the help which Miss Lawrence was the recipient of in the play. For "Lady in the Dark" will probably go down in theatrical history as the show that introduced to a palpitating public Danny Kaye and Victor Mature. Hit of the play was Danny Kaye's song of the Russian composers, which doesn't show in the movies.

In short, the movie is worth seeing, but, considering the material Hollywood had to work with, the job is poor. Let's hope they do a better job with "Oklahoma!"