Cinema: The New Pictures: Apr. 20, 1936

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In real life, Lieutenant Rowan is now a 79-year-old retired colonel who lives quietly in California with nothing much more than a medal he received in 1922 to remind him of his feat. He may be surprised, in this screen play by Gene Fowler and W. P. Lipscomb, to learn his mission was to deliver a mysterious sealed letter; that he was aided by a swashbuckling ex-sergeant of Marines (Wallace Beery) and the lovely daughter (Barbara Stanwyck) of a Cuban patriot; that his principal antagonist was an international spy of in determinate nationality (Alan Hale); and that he was rescued from the clutches of the latter by a charge of General García's cavalry. Cinemaddicts less intimately acquainted with his exploit will accept these as legitimate embellishments of romanticized history. Good shot: Rowan (John Boles) and the sergeant wading through a pool full of alligators.

Small Town Girl (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer). Cinemactress Janet Gaynor occupies a unique niche in Hollywood. She is one of the half dozen pre-talkie stars who are still front rank box-office attractions. This phenomenal record has been made in the face of the fact that for ten years she has been playing, with superficial variations but no real exceptions, one role, that of Cinderella. The news that, loaned to MGM, she was to appear in a Ben Ames Williams story originally picked for Jean Harlow started hopes that Miss Gaynor's marathon might be about to end. Small Town Girl ends them.

Through the Massachusetts Village of Carvel, gay crowds pass every Saturday in autumn on their way to football games at Boston or New Haven. Kay Brannan watches them and sighs. Her family bores her. She yearns for more expensive things. One Saturday evening a handsome Boston socialite, young Dr. Bob Dakin* (Robert Taylor), sweeps up to the curb in his icecream roadster, takes her for a ride, gives her some champagne. Next morning, he emerges from an alcoholic haze to learn that he has married her.

For most girls, small-town or otherwise, young Dr. Dakin's boorish reaction to the news might well remove all glamour from the escapade and make a return to Carvel seem an irresistible alternative. Not so for Kay Brannan. With a stubborn sweetness that does credit to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's casting intuition, Kay Brannan goes about reforming her oafish Boston scion until, instead of divorcing her to marry the lecherous debutante (Binnie Barnes) who had been his fiancée, he is ready to sober up and settle down to work as a brain surgeon. Best shot: The Captain (Edgar Kennedy) of Dr. Dakin's yacht showing Kay Brannan how to steer.

Hollywood "Kidnapping"

Freddie Bartholomew, 11, George Arliss of child actors, gets an estimated $1,250 a week from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer because he impersonates immature characters like the heroes of David Copperfield, Little Lord Fauntleroy and Professional Soldier with incongruously mature dignity. Last week, Cinemactor Bartholomew was the central figure in as incongruously childish a legal mess as Hollywood, which specializes in such affairs, has produced in a long time.