Cinema: The New Pictures Nov. 4, 1929

Marianne (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer). One of the most lamentable consequences of the singing pictures is Marion Davies. Here she is as a French girl in love with Stagg* of the A. E. F. One of the ablest clowns in the cinema she is forced to be sentimental. A skillful pantomimic, she has to talk continually, even sing. Unalterably Irish-American she wears peasant clothes and expresses herself in a language consisting of U. S. baby-talk combined with the foreign word cheri. A French soldier who has gone blind is the dramatic obstruction in her affair with Stagg. Best shot: Marion Davies entertaining a base camp with imitations of Maurice Chevalier, Gloria Swanson, Sarah Bernhardt.

A Most Immoral Lady (First National). The duplicity of wives who lure rich men into compromising situations so that their husbands can collect money from them has long been familiar to theatre audiences. It is less common in the cinema. The hints that before long Leatrice Joy will fall in love with one of her dupes even keep her from being as boring as her stolid acting usually makes her. Changing A Most Immoral Lady into a picture has slowed its tempo and made even more insubstantial its faint flourishes of wit. As though recognizing this the producers have dressed it up with some expensive sets and a little indifferent singing. Silliest shot: rich codger telling Miss Joy why he admires her.

The Return of Sherlock Holmes (Paramount). When Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was writing the stories that became the basis of modern detective fiction, he clearly attached no importance to frightening people and wasted no time on realism. What kept him writing was his naive pleasure in being mysterious. Director Basil Dean has retained Doyle's point of view wonderfully well, so that instead of an overwrought modern thriller The Return of Sherlock Holmes is good fun. Obviously relishing his role as the author relished his mysteries, Clive Brook, wearing sideburns, in a woolen hat and old-fashioned loungesuits, knows just how to handle the Sherlockian pipe, as crooked and heavy as a revolver.

On the trail of international wiretappers, murderers, kidnappers, he gumshoes in many disguises along the corridors of the fastest ocean liner afloat. Adroitly he deals with dictaphones, fake wireless messages, the poisoned needle springing from the clasp of a cigaret box. When at last the Master Criminal lies dead and the fiance of the daughter of his old friend is restored to society, he punctuates with a tap of his pipe the famed, "Eleementary, Watson, eleementary." Best shot: dinner 'for two in the arch-fiend's cabin.

Frozen Justice (Fox). Melodramas like this, arranged against backgrounds of snow and wintry seas, have been fine vehicles for that smart dog, Rin Tin Tin. Lenore Ulric is nicer to look at than