The New Pictures

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At this point she gets an unexpected letter from her estranged husband, which opens the way to a reconciliation, which opens the lid of the charity's cashbox to a couple of cute crooks. The husband and his accomplice (Ron Randell), a high-pressure pressagent, convert Esther and her guardian, before the fond and foolish woman can quite realize what is happening, from a couple of earnest do-gooders into a full-scale charity circus. Surveying the vulgar array of bands and choirs, kiddies' clubs and visiting celebrities, a hard-boiled newsman sneers: "It's the biggest thing since Ben Hur." But the city fathers beam, the prelates preen, and the everyday suckers lap it up.

And so it might very well have continued if moving pictures did not have to end. This one winds up with what is probably the most improbable happy ending of the season: a rape that makes everything come out right. Nevertheless, the picture's shocks should have some salutary effects. They may remind the public sharply of the Biblical injunction that good is best done secretly, and rather more pleasantly remind everybody that Joan Crawford, a star whose 30-year career has recently bogged down in bad pictures, can still turn in a creditable performance—and what's more, is still pretty darn good-looking too.

Jailhouse Rock (MGM) presents Elvis Presley to the moviegoing public for the third time—sensitively cast as a slob. The slob is a bathtub baritone who finds himself in jail for manslaughter, and who develops some characteristic convict convictions. "Do unto others as they would do unto you," is his motto. "Only do it first." He starts to do it as soon as he gets back in circulation, and the first sucker he takes is the first friend he finds —pleasingly played by Actress Judy Tyler, 24, who was killed in a car crash shortly after the picture was finished. When she lies down invitingly, the slob's only instinct is to walk all over her, and when she has put him on the rock 'n' rollercoaster to success, he tries to throw her overboard on the first curve. As Elvis at his most elegant explains: "That's the way the mop flops."

In the conventional conclusion, love conquers everything but the insuperable Presley personality. For moviegoers who may not care for that personality, Presley himself offers in the film a word of consolation: "Don't worry," he says. "I'll grow on you." If he does, it will be quite a depressing job to scrape him off.