Is Ernst Lubitsch a good movie director and producer? One of the best: "Ninotchka" and "Heaven Can Wait" are typical products of the "Lubitsch touch." And is Jennifer Jones a good actress? Yes, and as beautiful as her co-star, Charles Boyer. This fellow Samuel Hoffenstein, can he write? Like a Parker 51. Then how come "Cluny Brown" is such a bum picture?

That's easy. Hoffenstein's get-nowhere say nothing script condemns the picture from the start. The potential comedy in a story about a maid with a yen for fixing plumbing and an over-frank manner in the presence of superiors gets stuck in an under brush of plot complications. Given this bad material to work with, Lubitsch has made the worst of it. He has miscast both Miss Jones and Boyer in light comedy parts, and his attempts at satirizing English high-life seem ponderous, especially when handled by Peter Lawford and Helen Walker. Add to this a further attempt at satire in the person of a priggish druggist which comes out sinister rather than funny, and you have most of what's wrong with "Cluny Brown."

But why did the critics like it so much? Probably because its superior dialogue, a funny butler and housekeeper, and an ending full of style, taste, and charm won them over in the wee hours of the morning. But making a bad movie with good minor features and clever dialogue is like making sour apple sauce including just one good apple.

It's all clear now except for two things. If all these people, like Lubitsch and Hoffenstein, are as good as you say they are, how can they be as bad as you say they are? And why has "Cluny Brown" been a popular success?

That's the same as asking why able men produce an inferior product and why the public then cheers and buys it. This question cannot be answered outside of Hollywood, and must not be asked inside.