Cinema: The New Pictures: Sep. 19, 1938

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Under its fancy dress, Drums turns out on close inspection to stem less from U. S. predecessors like Lives of a Bengal Lancer than a merger of early epics about the winning of the West, with the usurping Prince Ghul substituting for Sitting Bull and the Khyber Pass as stand-in for the Oregon Trail. Principal distinction between its plot and that of the early American version of the same theme is that, instead of a golden-haired heroine, the Prince (Raymond Massey) maltreats his brown-faced little Hindu nephew (Sabu). Busily organizing a gigantic revolt of all the border tribes from Afghanistan to China, Guhl undertakes to cross a tight-lipped British cavalry captain (Roger Livesey), whose function in the film is roughly equivalent to that of the Lone Ranger in a mess jacket. By the time this error has had its inevitable consequences, small Sabu is back on the throne where he belongs, and U. S. audiences, if they feel faintly cheated because there has not been any scalping, will at least have been rewarded by a full quota of parades, whiskey drinking, bagpipe music, sword dancing, gunplay in the palace courtyard and fine, old-fashioned British slang.

Son of a mahout in the elephant stables of the Maharaja of Mysore, Sabu was picked by Director Robert Flaherty to play the lead in Elephant Boy two years ago. Now 15 and one of the half-dozen highest paid child stars in cinema, he goes to a boarding school at Beaconsfield, where he plays halfback on the second Rugby team, keeps a flat in London, where he lives with his brother, a tutor and three servants, drives himself about in a miniature car, often visits the London zoo, where he makes friends with the elephants and stables his mongoose, Rikki. In his first picture, Sabu memorized the sound of English words, spoke them without understanding. Now, having packed a lifetime's schooling into two years, he not only speaks and reads English but can read French and Latin as well, hopes to get into Oxford in three years. Last week, Sabu sailed on the Aquitania for his first visit to the U. S., in the course of which he will attend the première of Drums, call on Mrs. Roosevelt, meet Shirley Temple in Hollywood.

My Lucky Star (Twentieth Century-Fox) provides happy, healthy Sonja Henie, whose previous cinema roles have differed only in the hairline shadings of her skating routines, with a new medium of self-expression: clothes. Functioning as an employe of a Manhattan department store, she is sent to Plymouth University on a semiprofessional basis as a mannequin to promote the sales of winter sportswear. This device supplies most of the story motivation in My Lucky Star, since the Henie wardrobe arouses the jealousy of her less fortunate classmates. It also permits Miss Henie to model a collection of cold-weather creations which female cinemaddicts are likely to find even more eye-worthy than the tricks Miss Henie executes while wearing them. Best of the latter is an Alice in Wonderland ballet on ice.