Cinema: The New Pictures: Jan. 1, 1940

She was born in Budapest 27 years ago and her name was Ilona Hajmassy (pronounced High-massy). At 14, Ilona was a seamstress in a sweatshop, with a will to sing. So Seamstress Hajmassy applied at a Budapest opera house. When its manager asked her what she could do, she told him: "Nothing." He put her in the chorus. There she earned 60 pengö ($10.50) a month, got no curtain calls. An M. G. M. executive finally spotted her at the Vienna opera, took her to Hollywood, where for six months she crammed dramatics and English, dieted on cottage cheese and skim milk, laid off such Hungarian delights as lekvar (gluey layers of candied noodles). Her first U. S. movie role was a small part in Rosalie, starring Nelson Eddy and Eleanor Powell.

Simple as a Hungarian peasant, beauteous, fun-loving, slenderized Ilona Massey is unspoiled, despite pounds of jewelry and dozens of furs lavished on her by ardent admirers. She likes to wear them to Hollywood hot spots, but she also scrubs her own garage floor on all fours. Blue-eyed and flaxen-haired, she tempers Madeleine Carroll's cool gorgeousness with some of Mary Martin's warmth and a richer voice. The talent scout who uncovered her in Vienna wired: "This is the kind of dame who would look naked wearing a fur coat."

Balalaika (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) is the first picture in which Ilona, now Massey without Haj, has her first chance to star. Unfortunately, Hollywood has now got the idea that "social significance" has something to do with the amusement business. So the picture, which takes its name from a truncated Russian mandolin, the balalaika, includes not only fatuously lovable grand dukes and musicians, but downright sinister Bolsheviks. It also includes Baritone Nelson Eddy, the Russian Cossack Choir, an excellent cast (Frank Morgan, Lionel Atwill, Charles Ruggles, C. Aubrey Smith) and a lot of gorgeous clothing and sets.

Lydia Marakova (Massey) is a pink singer in old St. Petersburg. Her father and brother are Reds. Despite these home influences, Lydia is irresistibly attracted when Prince Karagin (Eddy) begins a kittenish courtship which would set the teeth of a more experienced young woman on edge. Red family friends of Lydia reward Prince Karagin for arranging her operatic debut by shooting his father. Off goes Lydia to Siberia. Off goes Prince Karagin to World War I, the big moment of which comes on Christmas Eve, when Karagin carols Silent Night from the Russian trenches while the Austrians across the way carry the chorus. After that the Russian Revolution breaks out.

Amidst these vicissitudes Songsters Massey and Eddy find time to sing often and well. Ilona Massey sings words to The Young Prince and the Young Princess from Rimsky-Korsakoff's Scheherazade, a duet from Carmen with Nelson Eddy. He sings the Volga Boatman's Song in rumbling Russian, other Muscovite songs in English.