The New Pictures

Be Yourself (United Artists). Far more conscious of her limitations than most actresses in or out of pictures, Fannie Brice demands certain uniform qualities of all stories suggested as vehicles for her. She must play the part of a homely girl; she must have a chance to clown, and sing her songs; she must be disappointed in love. Be Yourself, which deals with the lighter aspects of the prizefight business, fulfills all these conditions fairly well and at the same time establishes a fact which may be useful to Miss Brice when she chooses her next picture -- its burlesque is far more successful than the elaborate cabaret scenes, or that expected moment when the star, discovering that the man for whom she has sacrificed everything, whom she has made successful, has be trayed her, sings alone and downcast a ballad of unrequited loyalty. As the fighter whom she coaxes out of a cabaret and into a gymnasium, Robert Armstrong, who makes a specialty of playing stupid fight ers, gets several laughs. Best shot: the big fight between Armstrong and McCloskey, when Fannie Brice yells to McCloskey to hit her onetime sweetheart on his re modelled nose.*

Let's Go Places (Fox). As a stage musical comedy in parody of modern sound pictures, Let's Go Places might be funny. In its present form it is an in credibly naive account of a young man's rise to Hollywood success. Its suspense is based on mistaken identity. Apparently its wandering scenario, on which an excellent cast is wasted, was designed principally as an introduction to ballet numbers which, though some of them are ingenious, do not show up in black and white on the small screen. Typical shot: a Holly wood party at which the male and female guests dance like a trained chorus, sing in parts.

The Case of Sergeant Grischa (RKO). When this story was published as a novel in the U. S. a year ago it was hailed as a masterpiece, in spite of the fact that its author, Arnold Zweig, had constructed it awkwardly. If Herbert Brenon, who directed the picture, had torn down the book and built it properly, starting the story at its real beginning, _ with the arrest of the Russian soldier, Grischa. after his escape from a German prison camp -- if he had shown the panorama of war moving around this insignificant figure in the foreground, getting across the tremendous implications involved in the in justice of Grischa's imminent fate, he might have made a masterpiece. Instead he allowed the anecdote to remain personal. The Case of Sergeant Grischa further suffers from such imperfections as polyglot accents among the cast; the fre quent use of miniatures and fake outdoor sets, particularly in the earlier sequences; the absurd theatricality of little, linking scenes that could with no more trouble have been made natural and valid; and the miscasting of Betty Compson who, with her worn, heavily cosmetized prettiness. in a hut in the middle of a forest looks little like a tough Russian girl camping out. Chester Morris, though highly histrionic, makes the part of Grischa believable, and the last sequences, especially the execution, are directed with realism. Best shot: the audience looking toward the firing squad through a black screen that is the bandage over the prisoner's eyes.

Chester Morris's parents were in vaudeville for years. His brother Gordon writes plays. His brother Adrian and his sister Wilhelmina do short turns and musical specialties. He tried to be an artist for a while, then worked in vaudeville as a Magician--"Mysterious Morris"--copying Thurston. Augustus Thomas, who was an old friend of his father, got him a part in The Copperhead with Lionel Barrymore. After that he worked in various stock and Broadway plays. For some reason he has been more successful in pictures than anywhere else. Some of his films: Alibi, Woman Trap, Fast Life.

The Vagabond King (Paramount). Francois Villon was a lean, bony, shrivelled man, with a sharp dark face and an upper lip pulled into permanent irony by a dagger slash he got one night outside the church of St. Benoit-le-Bientourne. He made an indifferent living in the Paris underworld of the 15th Century, and there is evidence that he served several jail terms, committed at least one murder, suffered from venereal disease, and wrote, in underworld slang, the best French verse of his time. Not much of what scholars have found out about the real Villon is preserved in this handsomely romantic operetta based on his life. To music by-Rudolph Friml, in a story taken from an old best-seller by Justin Huntly McCarthy, Dennis King acts a Villon who becomes King of France for seven days, saves Paris from its enemies and wins the hand of his true love, Louis XI's niece. Although the entire cast, including King, caricatures the parts in the familiar cinematic manner, and although there are painful moments when the immortal Villon must recite dreadful verses organized for him by Hollywood hack writers, The Vagabond King is high-spirited and good-looking enough to be fair entertainment. Best shot: Villon's jailbird army mobilizing to defend the city.

* Fannie Brice had her own nose remodelled in real life, in Atlantic City, 1923-The august New York Times celebrated the occasion with one of its extremely infrequent wisecracks: (the nose) . . . "was condemned and torn down and a'high-class modern structure erected on the site." (TIME, Aug. 27, 1923.)

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