Evening star., 1938-11-12

ucI1flS, IuSIl lIlUO Illc SOluOlOIl VI
crime where the police are too dumb
to tread. There are overtones of
genuine mystery and romance to
counterpoint the comedy, thus sat
isfying about as many varieties Of
taste as possible short of bringing
in Indians.
incidentally, any miscellaneous
warnings left untitled by the major
attraction probably will be taken
care of by the shorts with which it
is supplemented. They include an
airplane travelogue, Mickey Mouse
and Pathe sports short on women
diving champions, all Of which add
up to gold star for Mr.. Meakin for
showing them
The murders in "The Mad Miss
Manton,s which look as if they are
about to decimate cafe society. are
planned and executed with a casual
ness that makes the thing even
wackier than it probably was in
tended. 1t is kind of inspired
remissness on the part OF the script
writers who found, in their tnspira-
ton, film editor who turned out to
be bright accomplice. 1t probably
is silly to mention it, but the way the
madness develops a mans got to
protect himself from suspicion.
n-admirers of Miss Stanwyck,
whose name is not SO legion as re-
suit of her recent work. will find her
favorably cast once more. AS
mad-cap heiress with an urgent
sense of civic duty which throws
her, as a kind of monkey wrench,
into the machinery of crime pre-
vention, she turns in a very neat
performance. She is busy constant
ly juggling murderers. her faithful
and frightened crew of fellow
leaguers, a police department and
the man who loves her. The man, of
course, is Mr.. Fonda, who plays the
part Of the newspaperman who has
become as inevitable in movie MUIR
ders as the corpse itself Mr. Fonda
is pretty facile about this interest
ing chore.
For all the nice work Of the prin-
cipals, however, honors for down.
right acting in the piece 60 to the
versatile Sam Levene. Mr.. Levene,
recently exiled from Hollywood be-
cause there were no parts to play,
is nobly cast here as a police lieu
tenant. Between his unsolved mur-
ders. his stomach disorders which
call for constant bicarbonate, and a
serious allergy for heiresses who butt
into his business. Mr.. Levene has a
time that is as funny for his audi
ence as 1t is wretched for him.
A reviewer twice as dirty as this
one about revealing the plots of mys-
teries would find himself as stymied
here, just as were the script writer's
He would end up by saying merely
that it is full of situations that nour-
ish laughter every other minute.
Among them are those in which the
Junior League crime operatives dis
cover bodies in such places as elec-
trio refrigerators (while looking for
q sandwich) and the rumble seats
of police cars. Another that makes
even a deeper impression is that in
which Mr.. Fonda feigns the ap-
proach of death to drag important
admissions of love and withhold
evidence from his sweetheart.
The dialogue of THE Mad Miss
Manton" is more than passing bright,
as dialogue goes through projection
and it considerably en-
hances situations that in themselves
are inherently funny.
Director Leigh Jason has kept his
farce moving at q suitable farce
tempo and contrives to get the full
est value from the various episodes
tense. funny and somewhere between
with which the script endowed
him.
AS you would expect of a movie
involving the Junior League, "The
Mad Miss Manton" is extremely well
dressed. So well dressed, in fact,
that 1t is doubly affecting to see
Stanley Rigges walk into the picture
near the end looking for all the world
like old Trock in "Winterset." Re-