The New Pictures

Shoot the Works (Paramount) contains two actors who have died since the picture was completed: Lew Cody, as a hardboiled theatrical manager whose slogan is "Goodby, please"; and Dorothy Dell, as a successful night club singer.

Unfortunately, a posthumous cast is almost all that distinguishes Shoot the Works from innumerable other cinemusi-comedies. It was loosely assembled from Ben Hecht and Gene Fowler's loose play, The Great Magoo, and named after "a revue produced by Heywood Broun two years ago. Retold is the familiar narrative about a young actress who makes good and her overconfident lover, a sidewalk concessionaire named Nicky Nelson (Jack Oakie), who absents himself during" the middle of the story to facilitate her career. Best song: "With My Eyes Wide Open, I'm Dreaming." Best joke: the reply of Nicky Nelson's ticket taker when he asks her to go back and wait at their hotel:

"Why Nicky, you know I can't go back up that fire escape."

Strictly Dynamite (RKO) is an uncomplimentary portrait of a radio clown (Jimmy Durante); his partner and mistress (Lupe Velez); his gagwriter (Norman Foster); and the gag-writer's agent. In it Jimmy Durante says '"incredulous" when he means "incredible"; "confederate" when he means "inveterate." The narrative is interrupted at intervals by a telephone repairman who calls up someone he dislikes to say "Nuts."

What the cinema was to the stage three seasons ago, the radio is currently becoming for the cinema: a standard subject for abuse. Strictly Dynamite is strictly routine. Even Jimmy Durante's nose cannot conceal the dullness of its narrative, the staleness of its jokes.

Midnight Alibi (First National). Short stories by Damon Runyon generally mix good-hearted guttersnipes with nice old ladies (Lady For a Day) or babies (Little Miss Marker). The contrast makes good cinema fare. Midnight Alibi deals with a gangster named Lance (Richard Barthelmess), a rival gangster named Angie, Angie's sister (Ann Dvorak) with whom Lance is in love, and an old lady (Helen Lowell). The old lady lives in a brownstone house opposite Angie's night club. When Lance, running away from Angie's gunman, comes through her back door, she takes an interest in him. When he needs an alibi for the murder of Angie, she supplies it. A mild fable with a morbid personnel, Midnight Alibi is impaired rather than improved by Richard Barthelmess, who makes grotesque faces when he tries to talk tough out of the corner of his mouth.

Stamboul Quest (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) goes one step beyond the usual spy story, deals with counter-espionage in Wartime Constantinople. A German spy, Annemarie (Myrna Loy), is set to catch the Turkish Commander of the Dardanelles, who is suspected of selling secrets to the British. With the aid of a large straw hat, and a plan as devious as her Oriental quarry, she succeeds. When she is falsely told that her scheme caused the death of her lover, she becomes mentally deranged, stays cooped up in a nunnery until he returns.

Mounted with authority against a technically difficult background and cannily photographed by James Wong Howe, Stamboul Quest is a mediocre vehicle for another lively performance by Myrna Loy. Best shot: Nuns trooping, two by two, past the demented Annemarie.

The Hell Cat (Columbia), remotely derived from Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew, concerns a spitfire heiress (Ann Sothern) and a hardboiled newshawk (Robert Armstrong). When the reporter slaps her face, she disguises herself by dyeing her hair, takes a job on his newspaper, maneuvers him out on her father's yacht so she can ridicule him to her friends. Suddenly she decides she loves him. Designed for second grade theatres and double feature programs, The Hell Cat is better entertainment than most Hollywood trivia of its class.

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