The thirst of movie audiences for a not-too-delicate combination of the two M's, marriage and murder, evidently has not yet been quenched. Bouncing back after "The Two Mrs. Carrolls," "Monsicur Verdoux," and a number of Grade B blood-curdlers, our ready producers have served up a Bluebeard in petticoats this time. Margaret Lockwood, sultry as an English actress could ever be, glides through the urbane intricacies and mad histrionics of "Bedelia" with murder in her heart and sex in "her soft white arms." Though the denouement is overlong and overplayed, the picture is saved by its tightly-constructed plot, which has not an irrelevant word or clue.
Principle attraction of the program now at the U.T. is its variety. "The Lost Honeymoon" comes like a cool, damp cloth on the audience's collective forchead after the emotional tropics of "Bedelia." It's a yarn about a guy who marries when he's in a state of amnesia (a device that is becoming about as common as disguise in Italian opera), and learns that his wife is arriving from England on the eve of his marriage to another girl. Franchot Tone's quiet mugging carries the frail little piece, which includes a number of very, very funny scenes. Best is one in which Tone prepares to retire to bed with a girl who he thinks is his wife, but actually is only a friend. Evidently she is not a very good friend, and the resulting argument sounds like a carelessly glossed-over version of the "Lysistrata." Of course things turn out all right, but not before we have seen all the right of this movie genre, including a car chase and a wedding at which Tone shows up in pajamas, and escorted by a Bellevue guard.
But that isn't all the Harvard Square opera house has to offer the kiddies. There's one more sweet, this time wrapped in technicolor celluloid. It involves a music box, a lot of people dancing in masquerade, and a freckled little girl in pigtails and pajamas, among other inedible. But it's only a short--just enough time for a cigaret in the large, well-lighted lobby.
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