Pratfalls & Tears

In the year or more since Jerry Wald and Norman Krasna, Hollywood wonder boys, formed their own producing unit at RKO Radio (TIME, Aug. 28, 1950), they have busied themselves with optimistic announcements and tinkering on movies already in production at the studio. Now, at last, they offer two products of their own: a wacky farce and an unabashed tearjerker. This double-barreled attempt to hit the target with old-fashioned bird shot may well succeed at the box office, but it also blows holes into the bright Wald & Krasna promises of original moviemaking.

Behave Yourself tries to get laughs out of mother-in-law jokes, a trained dog, a man's frustrated efforts to go to bed with his wife, and the innocent, harried involvement of a young couple (Farley Granger and Shelley Winters) bedeviled by comic thieves, murderers and cops.

The dog, trained as a gangster's accomplice, attaches itself to Farley and Shelley, who are unaware that the animal is being hunted by a quorum of the local rogues' gallery (Francis L. Sullivan, Lon Chancy, Glenn Anders et a/.). Luckily required to speak none of the film's dialogue, the dog charms Shelley into locking Farley out of the boudoir. Whenever Farley tries to get rid of this dog in the manger by answering a newspaper ad inserted by one of the rival crooks, Farley finds the claimant murdered-and the police (William Demarest et a/.) leaping to embarrassing conclusions.

Somewhere in this studied confusion of old stuff and nonsense lurks a workable idea for farce, as longtime Farceur Norman (Dear Ruth) Krasna should know. All it lacks is taste, timing, funny lines and, mostly, a pair of at least likable romantic leads.

The Blue Veil, a much slicker job with an imposing cast, tells the sad, sad story of a determinedly selfless woman (Jane Wyman) who goes through life (in four episodes) mothering other people's children and hiding her sorrows behind the traditional blue veil of the old-world governess. The picture is well calculated to please the kind of audiences who confuse a good cry with a good movie.

Thanks largely to a fine performance by Charles Laughton as a bumbling, middle-aged widower trying to woo his baby's pretty governess, The Blue Veil's first episode could hold its own as part of an omnibus film like Quartet. Governess Wyman, a widow who has lost her own baby, gently parries Widower Laughton's attentions and loses him willingly to his designing secretary (Vivian Vance), who thereupon cuts her adrift from the household and from the little toddler she has grown to love.

From that point on, The Blue Veil, though acted and directed with praiseworthy restraint, grows increasingly maudlin. Succeeding episodes merely repeat Governess Wyman's plight in triplicate, each time heaping her with keener deprivations and sanctifying her with brighter nobility. Marriage beckons Jane a second time, and with it a good man's love, but she remains always a substitute mother, never a bride.

Along the way, while their heroine sacrifices herself for others, Wald & Krasna sacrifice such able players as Agnes Moorehead, Joan Blondell, Richard Carlson, Everett Sloane and Cyril Cusack to the tear-stained demands of the plot. By the time a disenchanted moviegoer may have concluded that the long-suffering governess is getting just what she deserves, the producers tune up the heartstrings for a happy ending that is guaranteed to melt mascara.

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