The New Pictures: Mar. 25, 1935

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No kin to Singer Lucienne Boyer, Charles Boyer is the son of a country merchant who had him taught to play the violin, encouraged his taste for writing and directing plays which he and his small friends acted in a granary. Early in the War, Boyer, at 15, ran an amateur company to entertain soldiers. On his visit to Hollywood in 1932, he played a chauffeur in Red-headed Woman, bit parts with Ruth Chatterton, Claudette Colbert. After building up his prestige abroad, he returned last year, made Caravan, went home again because he considered the next rôle offered him unworthy of his talents.

He likes skiing, skating, bobsledding. at which he is proficient enough to negotiate Switzerland's Cresta Run. He still wears the heavy gold identification bracelet his mother gave him when he was mobilized for Army duty in 1917. In Hollywood, where he still finds cinema work more satisfactory than in France, Charles Boyer last week finished acting in Paramount's Private Worlds, with Claudette Colbert. Last fortnight, rehearsing a scene which called for him to topple into an orchestra pit, he broke two ribs.

Let's Live Tonight (Columbia). A gay bachelor (Tullio Carminati) sings a waltz to a young girl (Lilian Harvey) whom he picked up in the Casino, took aboard his yacht. Fearing he loves her honestly, he sails away alone without telling her why. When he returns, the girl has agreed to marry his brother. Clearing the matter up takes much dialog and some music. Best shot: the final one, in which the heroine hears the theme song, "Love Passes By," played by a hurdy-gurdy, tooted on an automobile horn, sung by a beautician, a gardener and Carminati.