Advertisement

June Bride

at the Metropolitan

In spite of a routine comic framework, Robert Montgomery and Bette Davis have a moderately intelligent script in "June Bride," and that's all they need. Montgomery is an accomplished wisecracker, and on occasion he can make even a standard line something to be remembered. Bette Davis, of course, is an actress, and although she seems a bit bottled up in a role that doesn't require lots of emotion, she can handle light comedy without much effort.

The plot is of little substance. The principals carry on their highly-conversational love affair as employees of a House Beautiful-type magazine. They go to Indiana to write a feature story on an average American "June wedding," and get mixed up in the romantic affairs of two young couples. Everything ends happily--but not stickily, as the antiseptic tone of half-seriousness which characterizes the performances of Montgomery and Miss Davis is fortunately maintained throughout.

Montgomery has more of a chance to spread himself than his leading lady. He gets drunk twice--once on hard cider. He staggers past a group of "proper" Hoosier matrons and topples into a snow-bank, in an episode that is frankly slapstick. But Montgomery isn't a hammy drunk, nor is he an actor pretending to be drunk; he manages to get drunk in a delightfully individual and convincing way. And in his sober moments, he's always in complete command of his part, that of a flippant and roguish magazine writer.

Bette Davis is Montgomery's straight man for the most part, and has to waste a lot of time unraveling the plot (which, although flimsy, is rather intricate). But she is a good straight man, and does a creditable job of sustaining "June Bride" in its dull spots. Although there are a number of these low pressure areas in the film, they aren't very damaging. The Montgomery-Davis combination far out-balances them.

The second movie on the double-bill is "Rose of the Yukon," and it's awful. But it is interesting in that it shows how producers of "B" pictures have jumped on the "hate-Russia" bandwagon. Instead of cattle rustlers or foreign baddies of obscure allegiance, this touching and horrible little epic of the far north has a real live Soviet Union as the agent of evil. One Russian thug is even made up to look just like Stalin, to clear up any doubts the audience might have.

Advertisement

Recommended Articles

Advertisement