Cinema: The New Pictures: Aug. 28, 1939

Lady of the Tropics (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer). "In the Orient," as M. Jacques Delaroch (Joseph Schildkraut) has occasion to tell young Bill Carey (Robert Taylor) early in this picture, "we are less concerned with changing things than with enjoying them." A half-caste who-has made himself one of the richest men in French Indo-China, M. Delaroch is content to enjoy the attentions of half-caste Manon de Vargnes (Hedy Lamarr), cares nothing about her ambition to escape to Paris and change herself into a Frenchwoman. When Bill takes a good look at Manon, jumps the yacht on which he has been a guest in order to marry her and help her change her life, M. Delaroch assumes a more active role. He blocks the Carey passports, lures Bill into the jungle, tries to teach Manon the virtues of passivity. But Manon, who has taken a good look at Bill, knows what she wants too.

To anyone who saw Hedy Lamarr in Algiers, it is plain that M.G.M. is on the side of M. Delaroch. In mood and decor, Lady of the Tropics is a faithful echo of the Wanger picture that introduced Cinemactress Lamarr to the U. S., made her the most celebrated siren of the screen since Theda Bara. After spending a small fortune on a picture with Spencer Tracy that had to be junked, M.G.M. handed Hedy and Screenwriter Ben Hecht over to Producer Sam Zimbalist, fresh from Tarzan Finds A Son. Practical Mr. Zimbalist, correctly figuring that audiences would like a picture as much like Algiers as possible, let the camera eye ogle Lamarr's uncanny physical charms, duplicated Producer Wanger's feat of making the Lamarr torpidity seem exotic. Somewhat bowled over himself, Producer Zimbalist observed: "Hedy is just a nice girl, not at all vain, and a hard worker. She has a natural allure. ... If anything, we've attempted to tone down the sex appeal she exudes. . . . All through the picture she is covered from head to toe. ..."

Fifth Avenue Girl (RKO Radio) rings an agreeable change on one of the theatre's sturdiest cliches: that nothing can untangle a snarled up family so effectively as a nervy outsider who plumps into its midst. Director Gregory La Cava, who tried it with a butler in My Man Godfrey (1937), this time does it in distaff with a working girl. When rich Mr. Borden (Walter Connolly) is stood up by his wife and family on his birthday, he wanders gloomily into Central Park, finds himself talking about the seals to pretty young Mary Grey (Ginger Rogers). Discovering by accident that Mary makes his enameled wife (Verree Teasdale) pay attention to him for the first time in years, Mr. Borden rightly concludes that her attention will be completely captured if Mary moves into the Borden house. Since the house also contains a highly impressionable pair of adolescent Bordens, the audience rightly concludes that Mr. Borden will soon get more from his employe than he bargained for.

To spectators who saw neither My Man Godfrey nor any of the variants of it since mimeographed in Hollywood, Fifth Avenue Girl may well seem one of the best pictures of the year. Good shot: Mrs. Borden, an apron over her sequins, wooing her husband by industriously scenting the Borden mansion with a succulent pot of Irish stew.