Evening star., 1938-01-01


your important ports of call il it is in
your mind to barge around to forget
the January bills.
In turning their cameras on this
tale Of q gallant pair of royal Rus
SLAMS who are living in exile ond pow
erty, and being very happy about it,
Warner Bros. have made it q some
what less subtle bit Of Robert Sher-
woods el1in writing. In view of the
fact that the alteration wreaks no seri-
GUS damage to the spirit Of the story,
and probably makes it even better
from the standpoint Of the larger
appeal it will have as q film, one can
not quarrel with the minor revisions.
"Tovarich," which is probably going
to be the Russian vocabulary Of mil
lions Of Americans from now on.
means "comrade." As drama, it has
to do with the hard life and fine,
bright, tender love of a pair of dis.
carded mobiles who become the abso-
lutely perfect servants of wealthy
family living in Paris. Mikail and the
Grand Duchess Tatiana are not the
ordinary impoverished pair, let it be
understood. for they have in their
keeping 10000 100000 francs, the
untouchable property of the thor
oughly dead Gar People of honor,
they cannot touch SOU of the fund.
So they 60 to work. And they love it.
And their employers, who have not the
slightest idea of the background of the
butler and maid, are charmed by their
enormous talents and graciousness to
the point of falling madly in love with
the newcomers. You can see for your
self that situation like that Is full of
comedy possibilities, most Of which
are realized by the direction and inter-
probation Of the drama.
CHARLES BOYER and Claudette
Colbert are cast as Mikail and
Tatiana and they make them as win
ming pair Of characters as you have
met in movie in wads of weeks They
have slapstickish moments where John
Halliday and Marta Abba did not
have them in the stage version, but
they convey the impression of warmth,
dignity, understanding and great
talents for living which the characters
are supposed to have. Their every
move makes 1t perfectly comprehen-
sible why the female members Of the
Dupont family should fall in love with
Mikail, the males with Tatiana. 1t is
such a happy state of affairs that
exists in the Dupont home after the
new servants take over, that it almost
breaks your heart to know that the new
life is house of cards destined to
come tumbling down at dinner party
where the famous guests start curtsey-
ing to the butler and maid. Boyer and
Miss Colbert are at their best in this
sequence, but better than either, we
thought, was Basil Rathbone cast as
the Soviet commissar whose job it had
been in other days to torture the royal
pair Under that evil exterior he al
ways wears, Rathbone shows the COM
missar to be person of uprightness,
compassion and number of other
virtues which have little chance to
flourish in world so much the victim
of circumstance. His scene with Miss
Colbert, in which her hatred for him
diSsolves into a moment of mutual un-
derstanding is one which you will re-
member as one of the most dramatic
the films have achieved. Never per-
haps has such q fine and dignif1ed
thing as that been achieved In a
kitchen, which is just kitchen for
all its luxuriousness.
Casey Robinson, who did the screen
treatment Of "Tovarich." shows him
self to be chap who recognizes good
dialogue by retaining that Of the stage
play in 50 far as possible. Nothing could
be happier than that for the effects
of the original dialogue range ali the
way from Jumps in the throat to VOL
canic outlaws.
Anton Litvak, who directed the film,
moves things along at pretty fast
pace after q slow and maybe too
pageanty an opening. 1t is dressed
pretty elaborately, but since most of
the action takes place in the home Of
q rich banker care there poor bank
ers?) you have to expect elaborateness.
Those bells you heard ringing last
were not for "Tovarich," but about
four of them might justifiably have
been. It is strong contender in the
battle for comedy honors.
ERAKSON, the magician, and Nick
Long, jr., the towering gent who
dances all over the place, are the out